AGENTS AND PATIENTS
SIR,—We were amused to read Leslie Adrian's cap- sule course on brochure study, and wish that hi.; lessons had gone a little deeper into the subject.
From his comments one might be led to believing that all inclusive holidays are not what their name implies and that supplementary charges are an agents' trick for getting more money out of their clients. If this were so, then the Association of British Travel Agents, as a watchdog of ethical practice in the travel world, must be asleep"or perhaps, as Mr. Adrian im- plies, the public is. Happily, neither is the case, and the numbers of people who arc satisfied by the way travel agencies operate increase year by year.
The custom of quoting the minimum price for an inclusive holiday, without including high season or peak charges, is adopted because this is what the public want. People who travel off season or mid- week, and there are many of them, want to know what the minimum cost will be and this is used as a basis for all holiday offers. This is a well-known fact among those who deal with travel agencies and I can- not help feeling that Mr. Adrian is underestimating the public intelligence in his '0' level tests.
It would take too long to discuss the detail of Mr. Adrian's advanced work syllabus, but his final para- graph regarding agents' liability is a little sweeping in its condemnation; booking conditions arc a com- plex subject and may vary according to the type of holiday chosen, but they are clearly set out and
the public do not seem to find them as irksome as does Mr. Adrian. Perhaps this is because they under- stand the necessity for them, and that their experience of travel agents has assured them that the applica- tion of such conditions is reasonable and fair. A. R. COLMER Secretary Association of British Travel Agents,
10 Mayfair Place, WI
Previous page
