It has been a fascinating 50 days in the Australian travel industry. After the ‘January jitters’ came Australia Day and then Australians started booking. Big time.
Kind of surprising considering the share-market world is about to end and the Australian dollar has gone from middling to overnight OMG. It’s done it about six times. Oh look, it just did it again.
Let’s look at some of the highlights of 2016 and what they mean.
Webjet kicked it off
Travel agents and most travelling consumers knew from the outset that Webjet’s customer service was absolutely crap. It was all over their Facebook page. The horror stories, the 14 weeks for the refunds and the ticket not valid for travel. The anti-agent advert was misleading.
So then the travel agents got onto the company’s Facebook page and started complaining about Webjet which in turn, pushed down all the customer complaints and replaced them with acidic vitriol… not a good look for agents.
Webjet are holding the bird up to anyone else who complains… including AFTA.
AFTA throws its hefty kahunas into the ring
“How can you walk around with those… Don’t they get in the way?”
Criticised for being soft (heh, criticising authority figures is an Australian pastime) on their moves on TCF, ATAS, NTIA… the initial AFTA response to Webjet seemed a little bit soft.
“We are all travel agents and should just get along.” Kind of a Martin Luther King moment “digital companies should play with bricks and mortar companies…”
But out of nowhere they pulled on the boxing gloves and got ‘lawyered’ up.
Jason came out with a jab, jab, right hook and said: “no Webjet, not only was that advert a little bit unfair but you are being misleading and lying about those good, honest, bricks and mortar travel agencies.”
Whilst the killer blow uppercut was blocked by the governing bodies who said the advert can ‘play on’ he did let travel agents know AFTA is there to look after them. Have Webjet woken a sleeping giant?
Then there was the Screw (Turner) Ball
This one came right out of the blue. Or did it? A strategy to increase Flight Centre firepower against the OTA’s?
Flight Centre’s invitation to ALL travel agents (more Martin Luther King) to cash in on the enormous buying power of Flight Centre’s wholesale arm for everyone’s mutual benefit was a bit of a shock. Hurrah. We all win. Especially Flight Centre.
It’s an interesting move. The reaction of the industry is entirely predictable. Flight Centre try and push in and helloworld pushes back. Flight Centre has been winning the pushing war over the past couple of years as helloworld establishes a new brand. Even “Screw” told them it would be tough at the start.
What is the brain at Flight Centre really working towards? Certainly a new revenue stream and maybe, increasing their firepower against the likes of Webjet who are clearly playing with different sets of rules.
I wish I could give you some insight into the conspiracy theory angle but seriously, it is genuinely one of the most fascinating things I have seen in the eight years of travel; use your competitor for your own benefit.
Andrew Burnes says “Not $%^&*# Likely”
I think when Andrew Burnes says Flight Centre had made a “tremendously courageous assumption” it was actually boardroom speak for “who the %^#* are they kidding”. The only thing he hasn’t quite said is “I will get very angry with anyone here who uses our competitions product line.”
Then again, “who owns what” is a fairly complex mess in the travel industry.
I REALLY like that he has come out, been strong, backed his brand and just said exactly what he is thinking.
However, there is an interesting outlier in his statement :
“I don’t believe other agents are going to be fooled into feeding the hand that bites them.”
I wish that was the case.
Because they keep using Expedia. You know, a big wholesaler that competes with them. At least Webjet don’t have a travel agent portal.
