Guest columnist: Steve Price, managing partner of leading direct marketing company Zn Solutions.

Next week, the great and good of UK tourism will gather at the British Travel Trade Fair in Birmingham. Consistently, for the past 12 months, the industry has been banging its drum. After all, 2003 proved to be a pretty successful year for domestic holidays (thank goodness for some sunshine!) to counteract the huge deficit on the inbound account. ABTA, tourist boards, operators and agents all joined in the debate, maintaining the panacea was to sell through travel agents; something that only the favoured few major operators have been able to achieve. So what’s wrong with the product providers and their reluctance to deal with agents? Historically, there has been mistrust on both sides. Travel agents booking British products often fail to get remunerated for their efforts; product providers, in disbelief at mercenary – their words not mine – commissions being required. In fairness to tourist boards, Visit England has now joined with the Wales Tourist Board in appointing a travel trade team. ABTA has openly indicated its willingness to promote the domestic product. Some cynics might suggest this because it didn’t have anything else to promote this time last year. But the big stumbling block is in the commission structures. The big hotel groups understand the mechanics and have systems in place to pay agents their rewards. It is the myriad of SME’s that balk at, even, 10% commission (they should start trying to work with operators and then see how much they need to make a living). We now have the internet which is going to solve everyone’s problems. Hoteliers, self catering operators, guest houses and B & B’s can put their product on the web and enjoy on line bookability – or can they? In reality, the answer is no because, in practice, there is no “real time” solution apart from the big boys such as Superbreak, Wallace Arnold, Cendant etc. Regional tourist boards and their sub regional Destinational Management Oganisations have jumped on the “lets get on the net” bandwagon; and guess what? They need commissions, and in certain cases rather more than travel agents expect. Whichever way you look at it, product providers have to pay for business that’s generated for them, be it through travel agents, tourist boards, DMOs or the advertising in national, regional and local media. There are solutions. Consolidation needs to take place between all the third party distribution channels, on understanding of all businesses needs and a prompt payment process will go along way to helping the industry have yet another good year in 2004.