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Sustainability is a powerful emotional selling point
Why book through a tour operator? Within my generation we have gone from a time when that question would not even arise (there was no feasible alternative), to racking our brains for persuasive answers amid premature obituaries for the traditional “holiday company”.
Are tour operators mere “intermediaries”, just “middle men” to be cut out by clever technology? If not, the industry must have the confidence to proclaim the real value it adds for the consumer.
Ironically perhaps, traditional operators have more of a case for adding value than the new players who have stolen so much ground in recent years.
An electronic broker with no real connection to either the consumer or the destination can only rely on branding, convenience and price.
Tour operators have got used to focusing on price – but the “value” they add is no longer mainly price-based. Operators must talk a different language now.
There are, I believe, four main areas of real value that traditional tour operators add: (1) financial security; (2) specialisation and “character”, (3) quality control and safety, and (4) the ethical dimension: in a word, sustainability.
Financial security will lessen as an added value factor over time, and in any case is a mixed message at best. The fourth factor – sustainability – is potentially a powerful emotional selling point, and most operators have not yet woken up to how it can help them.
This is still seen in too many places as a fringe green issue for worthy discussion, rather than a key part of the value added by an operator.
Tour operators work within destinations, and can influence change for good. Low cost carriers and internet-based brokers cannot. The best operators are already recognising “sustainability” as a core part of their value-added, and one which the “new intermediaries” cannot compete with.
*David Weston is company secretary of The Travel Foundation www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk
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