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Travelmole Guest Comment: Travco business development manager Robert Turner
Surfing the Internet the other evening, as you do, I was once again amazed at the huge numbers of sites dedicated to selling hotels.
I found page upon page of sites – more than 461 million of them according to Google. It’s a mind-boggling number, and what is equally amazing is the trust consumers now have in booking online.
The revolution that’s taken place over the last decade in online shopping has really changed the way consumers look at their travel plans. Vast swathes of holiday-makers now book online, picking their hotel because Trip Advisor says so, using a price comparison site to find the best deal and happily plugging in their credit card details.
But where do these hotels come from? And what exactly do consumers think about when they are choosing hotels and destinations?
Perhaps the recent tragic events in Corfu will cause them to consider health and safety, as up to now I doubt the vast majority ever gave it a moment’s thought.
They were probably far more concerned about the price and what the latest fashionable blog had to say on the hotel.
There’s no doubt dynamic packaging is here to stay, either done directly by the consumer or through an agent. The CAA and ABTA are busy fighting the toss about the degree of financial protection consumers have, but surely the question we should also be asking is the one about the physical safety of our clients?
At Travco, we supply hotels to conventional tour operators and online suppliers alike, but the way we differentiate ourselves from our competitors is that we will only provide hotels who have been audited to the most stringent Health and Safety standards, allowing complete peace of mind for clients.
Whichever way the ruling eventually goes, operators and agents alike should think about the safety of their offering and demand that their suppliers do the same. It shouldn’t take a tragedy to prompt us into action.
Robert Turner is business development manager for Travco,
a wholesale hotel contractor which contracts over 5000 hotels to sells to over 1000 companies in 80 countries
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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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