The Association of Independent Tour Operators has opened its doors to domestic holiday companies for the first time.
Board members at a recent AITO AGM made the decision as it became clear that more and more members were offering UK-based flight-free and more environmentally friendly holidays.
Currently AITO members offer mostly overseas holidays.
AITO chairman Derek Moore said: “Domestic tourism can be a considerable challenge and I feel that we can learn a lot from each other. AITO is not afraid of change and it was heartening to see the opening up of the association being so warmly welcomed by existing members. AITO aims to be the voice for all specialist tour operators, regardless of whether operations are mainly overseas or domestic and this decision will allow us to become more even more inclusive.
“It was becoming increasingly apparent to us that criteria such as excellence of operations, quality of product and customers services standards was perhaps more important than just the location of where holidays were offered. Clearly whilst there are differences between overseas and domestic operations the similarities between us outweigh the differences.â€
By Dinah Hatch
