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Travelmole comment: Travel Counsellors chairman David Speakman on ABTA’s change of protection policy
“If an ABTA travel agent goes bust the customer will no longer get any money back from the association – that’s the long and short of its new changes and I think the association has done its members and the industry a disservice by trying to fudge the issue.
By talking about dishonest travel agents ABTA has clearly implied that as long as you book with a bona-fide agent you will be ok and it is only if your agent is a charlatan that it won’t pay out. The simple fact is that if any of its agency members go bust ABTA will no longer refund the customer – end of story.
I have seen reports in The Independent, Daily Mail and Guardian national newspapers together with Sky News and the BBC’s websites all carrying the story that ABTA no longer financially protected the customer when one of its agents went bust if the agent was dishonest.
This clearly implied that they still financially protected the customer if the agent was honest. Many newspapers seem to have swallowed the story that cover had been “reduced” not eliminated as far as ABTA is concerned.
Many ABTA agents and virtually all consultants do not understand the vagaries, rules, regulations and caveats of customer financial protection.
ABTA’s spin makes their job even more difficult as it not only confuses the press but the customer. ABTA’s short term gain will be outweighed eventually when the public at large realise not only that ABTA have completely withdrawn their customer financial protection but misled the very people they once protected.
As an ex-Travel Agents Council member and now an ex member of ABTA I feel that an admission that ABTA no longer financially protects the customer, but that it has a strict Code of Conduct, would have been clear, honest and more straightforward for customers.”
David Speakman
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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