Contiki’s Managing Director, Katrina Barry, has admitted that while online travel agencies may have a place in the industry, they’ve got nothing on the original travel agent.
“Travel agents are still the most important and largest distributors of travel,” she told TW.
“In Australia, it’s not easy to travel, compared to in the US, where you get to just go from point to point.
“But when you’re going to Asia, and you’re stopping off in Thailand, then going to London but via Greece because you’ve got family there, then exiting out of Berlin before one more stop off on the way home, that’s when you need an agent.
“Round the world tickets are not easy to do online.
“OTAs have absolutely got a place for booking a simple flight,” she added, but that’s basically where their appeal ends.
“Even for us, looking at Generations Y and Z, they like to outsource,” Barry said.
Asked how the role of the travel agent has changed over time for Contiki, Barry confessed it hadn’t.
“For us, the role of the travel agent never really evolved,” she said.
“The vast majority of our trips are sold through travel agents.”
Effectively, Barry explained that agents haven’t changed in the level of importance they bring to wholesalers such as Contiki, and in fact are still as relevant as ever.
“We’ll always use a travel agent,” Barry said. “They add value, and they make it easy.”
“I don’t do all my own tax returns, because I’m not passionate about the finance or the paperwork. That’s the same as not being passionate about using a GDS to book a flight, so we use a professional,” she added.
