Death looms for travel agencies as bookings fall
●Airlines, hotels compound pressure with zero commission
Except urgent solution is found, Nigeria’s and Africa’s travel agency market would continue to experience downward trend, findings by Woleshadarenews have revealed.
This is exacerbated or compounded by poor infrastructure and inadequate tax incentives that can be used to unlock the full potential of the travel industry.
Stakeholders comprising travel agents, aviation regulatory body, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), airline operators and service providers, among others, gave this verdict on the side-line of Aviation Round Table (ART) first quarter 2019 Business Breakfast meeting with theme: “Nigerian Travel Agencies Challenges and Regulations,” held in Lagos, last weekend.
They noted that the regional market downturn has affected the Nigerian travel market and its agents drastically; reducing their numbers nationwide.
They further stated that increasingly Nigeria’s local travel agents are unable to justify their value to the customer coupled with their inability to adjust to technology platforms that enhance customer access and all round increased productivity.
The continuing evolution of information technology has had a considerable impact on the travel agency service industry.
The widespread public use of the Internet has created a number of conditions that have been game-changers in both beneficial and detrimental ways to the modern travel agency.
Consequently, many travel agencies in the 21st century have had to make considerable adaptations to remain solvent and relevant.
One of the largest impacts on the travel agency has been the rise of online booking. Customers looking to book a trip no longer need to visit an agency. They can go online to book an entire trip themselves.
Airlines and hotels also have cut out the travel agent altogether by allowing customers to book tickets and lodging directly from their sites. That’s an unpleasant circumstance for travel agencies, who have traditionally relied on being seen as a necessary intermediary between customers and the services they require.
As more people book online, fewer people are heading into brick-and-mortar agencies and dealing directly with an agent. Pressure has also mounted on traditional agencies as airlines, hotels and other service providers they previously represented offer their services directly to customers online, cutting out the agency and the commission.
President, Aviation Round Table (ART), Dr Gabriel Gbenga Olowo, has stated categorically that Nigerian travel agents are facing extinction, as booking figures have been declining yearly since 2014 and have called on government to come together with relevant stakeholders to address the declining trend of the business.
His words: “If you look at the air bookings captured by travel agencies globally, I give you the map of Africa, this figure does not include direct sales of airlines, the ones through their portals and the one through their offices. For the ones that go through their agencies network, you see that booking by agencies in North Africa booking by agencies – 8.8 million, in East Africa 6.9 million, South Africa 11.9 million, West Africa 8.1 and Central Africa 2.6.
“Since 2014, in the last five to six years, the full booking that has been coming in year-on-year has been declining seven per cent, five per cent and it has declined 3.5 million bookings by 2018. This decline simply means our downstream sector is already seeing extinction and it concerns aviation round table. Some of them are our members and they are shouting the regulations and our principal partners the airlines.”
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