Agents, you need strategy, not tactics: Harbison

BEIJING - Amid the confusing and complex aviation revolution that’s taking place, travel agents should focus on areas where the consumer needs help – international, interline and multi channel sales, said Peter Harbison, managing director of Centre for Asia/Pacific Aviation.

“These are areas where the surviving agents can charge the customer,” he said at the Foresee conference in Bejing, organised by TravelSky Techonolgy.

”The survivors must increasingly become the agents of the traveller and add value.”

He said they can add value where transparency is at the lowest – new travellers; where Internet access is difficult and where complex itineraries are involved.

He said travel agents have no influence over many of the developments that are taking place now but “this is the time when the do-nothing agents go out of business.”

But he cautioned,“Don’t overreact.

“Competing with the new technology means changing the way we do business, not just reacting to threats or becoming our own biggest competitors.

“This is a not a technical revolution so it cannot be beaten by tech responses,” he said.

“Strategies that succeed will fully take into account the way the airline industry is changing.”