ATAS reaches six million

AWARENESS of the AFTA Travel Accreditation Scheme continued to surge last year, with AFTA CEO Jayson Westbury detailing the latest research outcomes at the Express Travel Group conference in Bangkok on Fri.

Over 6.2 million consumers were reached by AFTA’s various campaigns, including 1.97m through TV, 1.7m on radio, 1.4m online and 1.2m in cinemas.

Increased awareness of the scheme has also resulted in more complaints, with Westbury saying that indicates consumers are resorting to the ATAS scheme rather than complaining to various Fair Trading departments.

“It’s much better for us to sort these things out in-house,” he said.

Consumer research cited three core benefits of using an agent: protection from the unexpected, making things easy, and inspiration with knowledge.

“We now understand the compelling drivers for travel agent usage, and ATAS is one of them,” Westbury said.

The AFTA CEO also highlighted the AFTA Chargeback Scheme (ACS) which protects agents from credit card chargebacks.

There are about 580 ACS members now, and AFTA is in the throes of bringing American Express into the scheme, he said.

Westbury said he gets a “lot of flak” about suppliers who are excluded from the ACS benefit.

He noted that out of thousands of suppliers, only a few were excluded, adding “we don’t exclude them for fun - it’s not something we do without realising the ramifications.

“But for various reasons some suppliers have chosen not to participate,” he said.

Excluded suppliers are listed at afta.com.au/atas/acs.