Agents, you need strategy, not tactics: Harbison

It’s a confusing and complex world out there, amid the revolution that’s taking place in the aviation scene and the speed with which technology is evolving. How can agents survive when they have no influence over these developments? Peter Harbison, managing director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, said agents can take a leaf out of the experiences of airlines.

“To develop a strategy for survival, it’s essential to know what’s happening in the airline industry,” he said at the Foresee conference in Bejing, organised by TravelSky Techonolgy.

Citing the trend of legacy airlines setting up low-cost subsidiaries and cannabilising their products, Harbison said: “The real damage is done by overreaction and cannibalisation.”

His message to agents: “Don’t panic.”

He said most of the change is about transparency. Everyone in supply chain – the airlines and GDSs – had an interest in ensuring the public did not have access to full information and could not buy easily through any source.

“Transparency comes from Internet access and from new airline entry and competition which in turn is provoked by governments liberalising international and domestic markets,” he said.

Hence the intermediary’s new aviation revenue sources should focus on areas where the consumer needs help – international, interline and multi channel sales, said Harbison.

They can add value where transparency is at its lowest – for example, with new travellers; where Internet access is difficult or unavailable and where complex itineraries are involved.

“These are areas where the surviving agents can charge the customer.

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

He said competing with new technology means “changing the way we do business – not just reacting to threats or becoming our 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.

“This is the time when the do-nothing agents go out of business,” said Harbison.