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Home < Travel Industry Uncovered | ![]() |
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The Travel Industry Uncovered |
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3. Tour Operators & Travel Agents |
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'The Travel Industry Uncovered' is under development - some sections are not yet available or fully complete - please check back often.
TOUR OPERATORS Tour Operators put together the various elements of a typical holiday and sell them as package holidays. They sell their packages either direct to the public and/or through travel agents. The cost of a holiday can vary greatly between tour operators (see examples). If they sell through travel agents, they pay a commission (usually a percentage of the holiday price) to the agent. Most people are familiar with the large tour operators such as Airtours, Thomson and JMC. Such tour operators offer a vast range of holidays and a vast range of destinations, and their buying power ensures reasonable prices. However, never forget that there are thousands of other tour operators out there. Many are small operators, specialising in specific markets or specific destinations. and their prices can be very competitive. Tour Operators come in for a lot of criticism from consumer groups and watchdogs. Whilst, there are, of course, very good operators and very poor operators, we believe that in general, customer service in the travel industry leaves a lot to be desired (at all levels, including operator to agent, agent to the consumer and operator to consumer). Direct Sell Some tour operators will only sell their package holidays direct to the consumer, bypassing the travel agent. Other will sell through travel agents and also direct to the consumer and others sell only through travel agents. "Is it not cheaper to buy direct then?", you may ask. The answer is "well, perhaps sometime, if ... and but...". Let us explain... First we need to clear up a misconception which has evolved from a deplorable series of TV advertisements by Direct Holidays in 2001. These advertisements were designed to discredit travel agents. One in particular, indicated that travel agents ADDED commission to tour operators' prices and therefore charged the client MORE than the quoted prices. This is totally inaccurate and resulted in complaints to the ITC (Independent Television Commission), which were upheld. The ITC also required the broadcaster to cease further transmission of the advertisement in its current form. The truth is, clients booking through travel agents do NOT pay more than the operator's quoted prices. In many cases, they actually pay less than the operator's quoted price because travel agents often give some of their commission back to the client as a discount. Further details and the ITC's ruling is available here. Right, that's that out of the way - back to the question and the answer... Generally, there is little advantage buying direct from a tour operator who also sells through travel agents. The tour operators do not want to alienate the travel agents and consequently, you can usually get similar prices from both travel agents and 'direct'. Tour operators who only sell direct to the public can offer good value. They don't pay commission to travel agents which should allow them to sell holidays a little cheaper than if they did. However, bear in mind that:
TRAVEL AGENTS Travel Agents are agents for tour operators. Generally, they sell package holidays (and other products/services) on behalf of the tour operator and are paid a commission or fee by the tour operator for doing so. In addition to package holidays, most travel agents will offer other products and services such as:
Independence
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