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Guest Comment: Ian Thirlwall, managing director, Apartments Abroad
A phrase involving pots and kettles came to mind when reading ABTA’s response to the collapse of Duo on Travelmole.
As the association preached from the moral high ground about the absence of consumer protection for those who do not book ‘package’ holidays it deftly ignored, as it is prone to do, the gaping and increasingly widening loophole in its own consumer guarantee.
From a public perspective the ABTA logo stands for financial security. If an ABTA agent goes bust holidaymakers believe they will get their holiday or their money back. End of story.
But this is increasingly not the case as, in our rapidly changing marketplace, agents become reliant on non-ABTA component suppliers such as accommodation-only companies. This is a crucial development in relation to ABTA’s bond.
Despite insisting publicly that it has not changed policy, ABTA recently wrote to me saying it had reviewed practices and now insists that “where a confirmed booking exists no non-ABTA principal is entitled to submit any claim to ABTA for the amount of money not received from the failed travel agent.”
In adopting this new, blanket, rule ABTA points to UK common law obligations for a supplier to fulfil contracts as if this simply plugged the bond loophole. It doesn’t – by a long chalk.
Let me give you just one example why. The majority of new entrants to the accommodation-only sector act not as principals – as Apartments Abroad does – but booking agents. Thus holidaymakers’ contracts lie not with a UK supplier but, say, a Spanish hotelier.
According to the new ABTA doctrine that hotelier must supply accommodation even though he has not been paid for it due to an ABTA member’s failure.
Personally I can see few overseas hoteliers doing this – and besides, they are not bound by UK law.
As the ‘DIY’ market continues to grow – with some gamely predicting expansion to five million holidays by 2007 – what value will the bond and, therefore ABTA itself, have for consumers?
It’s a very big question and one to which ABTA’s continued silence suggests it sadly has no answer.
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