Opinions

United Kingdom - What's the bloody point then?

by Mike Levy

What use is a travel agent? A recent visit to a well-known high street chain resulted in not much travelling and hardly any useful agency. I wanted some information on flights to Japan. Yes there is Opodo and ebookers but maybe the experts know better? I made the error of walking into the shop at 5:20 pm. None of the agents sitting at their desks took much interest in me. They were busy logging off.

Eventually one woman looked up at me, and then her watch. “You do know that we close at 5 30,” she said in a half panic. “Yes, of course”, I said in my best calming down voice. “I just want some information on flights.” The woman got up and hurriedly offered me a brochure and then this piece of amazing advice: “It’s better you go online or maybe come back tomorrow morning.” She didn’t seem to realise that if I went online, there would be no need to come back not tomorrow, not ever.

If this his how travel agents operate in 2010, it is hard to see them existing at all by 2012. I appreciate that I had had the nerve to ask a question ten minutes before closing time but it wasn’t a very hard question. Harder questions must be asked of companies, which seem oblivious to the seismic shift in the way we now get our information and make bookings. What is the use of a travel agent? To direct us to the Internet it seems.