KEEPING AFTA’S NTIAS RELEVANT

THE AFTA National Travel Industry Awards have grown into an industry institution. The industry’s “night of nights” has become a pivotal event in the travel industry calendar. Uniquely, it brings together agents from all groups and their product suppliers, helping to fill the gap created by the demise of the annual AFTA convention. The problem with institutions is that they can become ossified and irrelevant – which is what happened to the AFTA convention when increasingly sophisticated agency groups initiated their own annual gettogethers to provide agents with information, education and networking opportunities. Pleasingly, the latest announcement from AFTA indicates this fate is not in prospect for the NTIAS any time soon. The federation this month added seven new categories to the awards roster and rejigged three others, providing plenty of evidence of a willingness to innovate and adapt to emerging travel industry trends. There is much to like about the new slate of awards to be presented at a gala night at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Dockside Pavilion in July next year. The introduction of a Best Online Travel Agency (OTA) award acknowledges the huge changes wrought on this industry by the internet. There will be tremendous interest in what shapes up as a tussle between Webjet, which claims to be the world’s only OTA of substance making money from airline ticket sales, and the rest of the field, notably Wotif/expedia, with business models focused on accommodation sales. Four new awards for travel agency managers – retail and corporate, single location and multi location – are a welcome addition to the awards traditionally handed out to consultants. The addition of a Best River Cruise Operator category is a no-brainer given the booming popularity of this relatively new sector. It will also eliminate the embarrassment of a (very fine) river cruise company like APT taking out an award ahead of major ocean cruisers like Carnival and Royal Caribbean as happened when a previous cruise category failed to group like with like. Perhaps most welcome of all is the addition of an award for Best Non Branded Travel Agency Group. The new award recognises what has arguably become the most dynamic sector of the Australian travel agency scene with the boutique Magellan Travel and the more broadly based Independent Travel Group bringing fresh energy to an area already well served by the likes of the Concorde Agency Group, Travellers Choice and the Australian Travel Agents Co-operative.