TravelMole Interview: David Jones, managing director, Travelink

According to Mr Jones, figures published by the CAA earlier this week are further evidence that operators and agents need to take action to compete with online players who are taking market share. He told TravelMole: “It isn’t the case that suddenly there is an online operator elbowing its way into the operator market. This has been building up for some time. “Online players are becoming tour operators. In the rankings there is the Big Four, then Cosmos, then potentially the online players.” Mr Jones says the online players are beginning to overcome problems over issues like ATOLs. He said: “The defences that conventional tour operators put up have been breached. “People said online players couldn’t compete with established brands like Thomson, but the CAA statistics show that the big names are losing market share. It wasn’t that long ago that all Expedia sold was scheduled flights. That changed when people started calling it an online agent, but now it is becoming more of a tour operator.” Travelink wants to appeal to medium-sized operators with its technology. Mr Jones’ message to operators is that there is greater potential to sell to customers through a variety of channels. He said: “The technology is now there to let tour operators compete in channels other than Viewdata. They can sell over the phone, face to face or on the internet, and have the same content on every channel.” On the issue of agents, Mr Jones said: “Our message to agents is that the technology is there to bring tour content in-house in the same way as the online agents are doing. Agents are in a position where they can become the travel principal.” So with online agents, “traditional” agents, and tour operators all offering the same booking methods and products to agents, will there be some casualties of the increased competition? Mr Jones answers: “I think there’s going to be consolidation because there will be a bit of a gold rush. There won’t be so much consolidation in specialist areas because some operators have decided that rather than fight for the big volume stuff they will specialise, like First Choice.” “The gauntlet has been thrown down to agents and operators and it is up to them to respond.” Travelink will be making an announcement at the Travel Technology Show concerning a new product that caters for the emerging market of agents that want to start offering more tour operator type content.

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