retail and business travel operations

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Sally-Jo Edlin Btec National Diploma in Travel and Tourism Jane Naylor

Unit 9: Retail and Business Travel Operations

The business and retail sector

Task one (p1)

The retail agents focus on the leisure tourists. They sell products such as package holidays to theatre tickets.

Where the business agents sell flights, hotels, itineraries but not as a package they purchase these from many different travel agents

Multiple Travel agents

Multiple travel agents are a chain of many branches which belong to a large company. E.g. Thomas Cook, Thomson. Thomas cook have many branches around the UK, they don’t just sell holidays in travel agents they also sell holidays on: the TV, internet etc. With this they are open to a lot of different customers. They do cheap deals, last minute deals etc. They also don’t just sell holiday they also have their own airline and tour operator. The multiple travel agents offer flexibility for the employee. These are often linked to an umbrella organisation e.g. Future Travel. This type of travel agent focuses on the retail sector

Carlson Wagonlit

Carlson Wagonlit is a global company which focuses on business travel planning and management. They are situated in around 154 countries. Carlson Wagonlit has about 600 agencies and more than 22,000 employees. They offer services to there customers such as:-

24 hour emergency service
1st class services
Help with passports and visa’s
Online booking

Home Workers

Home workers are people who combine working at home with family commitments. Also there are some home workers who don’t have a family commitment they just prefer not to travel to work. An example of a home worker is Holiday experts. They do a range of holidays, from ski holidays to city breaks. They are fully covered by ATOL and ABTA. The advantages of a home worker are that they can offer a personalised service. They often do specialised holidays. Home workers always aim to get the feedback from their customers. A down fall is that they can not always compete on price with the large multiple agents.

E-Agent

E-Agents operates as an online travel agents, they may not have any retail shops such as Expedia. But some do such as Thomas Cook. They can offer a wide range of travel products from flight only – package holidays. With price they are very competitive; this may be due to the limit of people being able to book online.

Both of these types of travel agents deal with the similar types of customers and also sell similar products to their customers.

Task 2 (P1)

ABTA

The Association of British Travel Agents. Over 5,500 travel agencies and 900 tour operators are covered by ABTA within the British Isles. Its aim is to maintain the high standards of trading practises to benefit their members. 1st July 2008 ABTA merged with FTO (Federation Of tour Operators).

ATOL

Air Travel Organiser’s Licence. This is granted by the CAA. By law it is required that any company selling package holidays on charter flights in the UK need to have an ATOL. ATOL does not cover anyone who does their bookings direct with the airlines. ATOL protects people from:

Losing Money
Being stranded abroad, if a travel company goes bust

IATA

This is a preview of the whole essay

ATOL

Losing Money
Being stranded abroad, if a travel company goes bust

IATA

International Air Transport Association. IATA represents 230 airlines which is around 93% of all traffic. The aim of IATA is to help improve airlines by increasing passenger convenience while also reducing costs and improving efficiency. They ensure that people and goods can be moved around the global airline network as easily as possible. The aim to benefit the following:

Customers – by simplifying travel and shipping process
Airlines - to operate safely, securely, efficiently and economically.
Airlines, passengers, cargo agents - neutrally applied agency service standards and centralised financial systems.
Industry suppliers and service providers – by providing solid expertise to airlines
Governments – tries to ensure that they are all informed of complexities and long term decisions.

Consortia’s

For an example of a consortium i am going to choice World Choice. With this consortium each member of the consortium is an independent travel agent.

It was estimated that there was around 700 individual independent travel agents with in the consortium in 2006.

World Choice in 2006 joined 2 other consortiums global travel and advantage to make an overall massive consortium Triton travel. This is now the largest travel agency company in the UK, which owns around 15% share of the UK travel agency market.

Task 3 (p1)

Data Protection Act

The retail and business travel agents must work with Data Protection Act as they are holding a lot of peoples personal details e.g. Name, Address. As they hold these types of records they have to be under the Data Protection Act. If the act is abused then it can be penalised with a fine either to the company or to individuals of the company. While under the act the clients have a right to know what personal information is being held of theirs, but there is usually a payment. The act is set down by ABTA.

Trade Description Act

The business and retail travel agents must work with the Trade Descriptions Act as if they are selling products in which they are it is by law that they are under the trade descriptions act. The several defences in which may help if the act has breached are:

A mistake
Reliance on information provided (from tour operator)
The act or default of another person
Some other cause beyond the travel agents control

Health and Safety at Work Act

The retail and business travel agents must work with the Health and Safety at Work Act as they want to ensure that the staff and customers are in a safe environment as possible. The act affects both company and employees. Most organisations have a policy and procedure in place as a guideline on health and safety. If there are more then 5 employees then by law they should have a written health and safety Policy statement.

EU Package regulations

The EU package regulations or (EU Directive) affects the following areas:

Brochures and advertising
Supplying information to customers
Finalising contracts
Transferring bookings
Changing prices
Altering terms
Withdrawals, cancellations and alternatives
Liabilities to customers
Financial Security
Insurance

The EU Directive indentifies what a package is, which is:

Be sold or offered for sale
Be sold at an inclusive price
Be pre-arranged
Include a minimum of two of the following three elements

Transportation
Accommodation
Another major tourist service accounting for a ‘significant’ part of the package.

FSA

FSA is the Financial Services Authority. They set the law down that the each employer has to go through training and exams to be able to sell insurance to their customers.

Task 4 (p1)

Chain of Distribution

The Chain of distribution shows how a product or service gets to the customer from the manufacturer.

Above is a diagram showing the chain of distribution, below is the one showing how it looks like in the Travel and Tourism industry.

Integration

There are 2 different forms that an organisation can integrate these are:-

Horizontal integration
Vertical Integration

Horizontal integration

Horizontal integration is where two businesses on the same level in the chain of distribution merge to make one. Or this could be where they are both purchased by another business. An example for this is if tour operators such as Thomas cook merging with another tour operator like My Travel.

Vertical integration

Vertical integration is similar to Horizontal integration but with this one is where a business takes over another business on a different level to them on the chain of distribution. Such as a tour operator like Thomson taking over a travel agents or an airline Thomson fly.

Agency Agreements

Agency agreements are agreements of the retail agent and tour operators/ principles. In these agreements the agent is told:

What they can sell
How they can sell it
What commission they will get for selling the product

Commission Levels

Commission levels is the money that the agent receives from the tour operator/ principle

For selling their products. This can range from 5% - 20%. Often the level of commission paid relates to the number of sales made.

Racking policy and preferred operators

Racking policy and preferred operators are dictated by the relationship they have with the tour operators. The one that pays the most commission will be situated in the best position.

Task 5 (m1)

In this task I will be overlooking the information I have already wrote and find out the similarities and differences between the two different travel environments.

The two travel environments are very similar in many ways. Below is a table showing the similar and differences between them both.

Retail and business travel environment both interrelate with other parts of the travel and tourism industry. These deals with, flights, packages holidays, accommodation providers, travel providers. Some of the larger company’s have there own:

Tour operator
Travel agents

These would also have a prime location, which is where more people would see them. They both interrelate with several, similar tour operators.

Now days Thomas Cook and Thomson are the 2 major travel providers, however not so long a go there was 4 major travel agents. This would have a massive impact on the travel industry as Thomas Cook and Thomson would have more money. There would also be more competition between all the smaller travel providers and the 2 major ones. The other tour operators now have to work harder to compete with the bigger providers. Also with the smaller company’s getting less profit there will be a loss of jobs.

Not only is the fact of the 2 major travel providers affecting the travel sector also more and more people everyday are starting to book holidays online instead e.g. a business man paying someone to sort it out for them when they can save money and do it themselves.

If a company owns e.g. Airline, tour operator and a travel agent then they have a massive say on their products and can sell them cheaper as they will not have to buy things such as a flight off other companies. Whereas the small independent agency’s have to buy in their flights and accommodation off the other big companies.

Task 6 (D1)

In this task I have to evaluate the effectiveness of the Retail and Business travel organisations. I will be looking at Thomas Cook. I will be looking at their booking methods that they use, how they respond to the change in customers’ needs and demands.

Booking Methods

Thomas Cook aims to gain as many customers as possible and by doing this they offer various ways of being able to book a holiday with them. These are shown below:-

Travel agent – they use these so people who like to deal with things through a person and have someone else do it for them. This also opens up to everyone who walks past their travel agent, they keep travel agents open to give people more of a chance to book a holiday as not everyone knows how to book on the internet or TV and just need that little bit of help.
Internet – they have set up a website to meet the demands of customers, now days most things are done using the internet and computers. So for the people who would prefer to book their holiday themselves then this is ideal. They also offer discounts if people book online.
TV- they now have set up their own TV channel which has a specific time for a set type of holiday or destination.
Thomas Cook Credit Card – they have also designed a credit card for people to use. You can use this card anywhere and by doing this you can earn travel pounds for every £100 you spend on the credit card you get 1 travel pound back. For every £100 you spend at Thomas Cook you get 2 travel pounds. These travel pounds can be used for holidays or travel booked from Thomas Cook. Also to suit everyone and so everyone is individual they can choose the design they would like.

Thomas Cook tries their best to respond to the rapid change in customers’ needs and demands. They have tried to give their customers an ideal way of booking their holidays. Also by rewarding them if they get a Thomas Cook credit card. They offer a range of holidays such as:

Cruises
Skiing holidays
Short breaks
Last minute holidays
City breaks

So there is something for everyone. They also give the customers the opportunity of buying currency at a fee free basis. Thomas has also brought out a card to save people carrying a load of money around so they just have this card. They are password protected and are secure enough to be used in ATM’’s and retail stores. These cards can also be reloaded.

Now I will look at a business agency – Carlson wagon Lits. They help companies of all sizes, also government intuitions and non-governmental organisations by optimizing their travel program and the best in class service and assistance for the travelers. They are partnered in over 150 countries.

Booking methods

Online – for online booking CWL try to cater for the different companies. Some of the needs for the customers that book online are:

Some clients prefer to select a third-party online booking tool on their own, or come to CWT already using third-party tools and want to stay with them
Other clients prefer to use CWT proprietary online booking tools, to enable more complete integration into their CWT service configuration
And many clients also wish to minimize the number of contracts they manage and would prefer for CWT to manage their third-party online booking tool contract

Complex bookings

For complex bookings Carlson Wagonlit have 18,000 trained travel councilors to assist the travelers with complex bookings and also special services worldwide. The travel counselor program ensures consistency and quality. For a client whose needs are two or more stop over’s then Carlson Wagonlit have another service, expert service personnel, these are experienced in complex bookings, multi segment, international itineraries. This service offers clients: