, ENDPAPERS
Berth Pains
By LESLIE ADRIAN The way I see it is that, on the eve of the winter season of misty-eyed advertising and mellow travelwriters' copy, the trade have de- cided to forestall any more moves towards com- pulsory registration by setting up their own exclusive controlling organisation, backed by a fund from which to compensate disappointed customers, and including an arrangement (called Operation Stabiliser) that is intended to channel all 'package tours' through member agencies. This is quite a tough move, because expulsion could deprive an agent of his entire hilliness.
The advantages of an ABTA-TTA merger (which TTA have little option but to approve at their annual meeting later this month) are obvious. It would simplify protection of the customer because he would only have to re- member to take his business to .a member agency of one association to be assured of honest deal and a chance of recompense if he feels genuinely aggrieved. It would also give the controlling association the opportunity to stan- dardise booking conditions which at present are so worded that some tour operators and agencies can duck any obligation to give satisfaction to dissatisfied clients.
True, legalistic booking conditions are mainly intended to frighten off those persistent perennial claimants who are never satisfied, but they are also old-fashioned (being modelled on those Thomas Cook copied from the railways a cen- tury ago, though Cook's themselves have modern- ised theirs) and unfair. It is a welcome idea that alongside the new travel association there should stand an independent tribunal to hear appeals from either side, without the necessity to go ex- pensively to law.
A riffle through my files over four or five years threw up scores of legitimate complaints against agencies and tour operators (the section on the Rome Olympics alone would fill a book, and the interpretations of the word `near' keep a courtroom full of lawyers busy until the Greek
kalends). It also reminded me of the article in the Travel Trade Gazette (February 1, 1963)
describing the French system of travel agency licensing. To obtain a licence to operate a French agent must provide evidence of solvency and honesty (at least one recent fiasco would have been avoided by that), make an advance sub- scription to a compensation fund, and show that he occupies suitable offices. If he fails at any time to abide by these conditions (quitting his offices without notice, for instance, as fly-by- night travel agencies like to do when the bills come in) the Minister of Tourism can suspend his licence.
In this country the Ministry could be the Board of Trade, and its 'chosen instrument' the new association. In addition, reasonable quality of service could be enforced by a system of in- spection. Such a suggestion will, of course, be greeted with derision by many agencies and tour operators, but I see more good than harm in it for, eventually, it would compel honest ad- vertising and fair dealing. At present there is far too much misleading hyperbole about travel advertisements.
I have the strong impression that the booming travel business has become considerably trickier in recent years, and the time to clamp down is now. Good luck to ABTA and all that, but the figures suggest that they and TTA will shepherd only three-quarters of the travel flock, and doubtless the blackest sheep will continue to graze elsewhere.
If only all agents had the moral fibre of Harry Chandler, chairman of ABTA's southern division and head of the Travel Club, Upminster. He has always refused to shackle his happy clients with booking rules in fine print (or any typeface at all) and now he has come up with a most generous insurance plan into which he has gathered Horizon, Global Tours, Wings, Lord Brothers, Wallace Arnold, Sk'tours and Riviera. In brief, it protects' the holidaymakers from having to pay for a holiday cancelled late because of unforeseen pregnancy or unemploy- ment, and also covers the usual contingencies— loss of luggage, accident and so on. For a 1966 holiday this looks the best' insurance buy in the business at 20s.
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