Travel agents are failing to encourage customers booking First Choice holidays to pay the optional £1.50 carbon offset charge.
The tour operator´s managing director Dermot Blastland said considerably more customers agreed to pay the charge when booking through its own website than through agents.
“The take-up is highest on the web, followed by our own shops, and then by other agents,” he said.
Speaking at the Institute of Travel & Tourism conference in Gran Canaria, he said the overall take up by customers was only 40% , but was as high as 75% for online bookings.
“I might be exaggerating those figures slightly. I´ll have to check, but they are definitely significantly lower through agents,” he said later.
“I guess it´s because agents are trying to keep their customers within budget and it´s easier just to leave it out, but it´s only £1.50 per person and we think many customers would be happy to pay it.”
First Choice contributes one pound for every pound spend and the other 50p goes to the Travel Foundation.
On the First Choice website, customers booking online have to click a box if they want to opt-out of the charge.
By Bev Fearis
