Steve Jones

It’s now 12 months since Dennis Bunnik took the reins at the Council of Australian Tour Operators and set about transforming its club-style mindset into an industry body with a more strategic, professional edge.

As I said at the time, it was the modernising change the organisation needed. To that end, Bunnik and the CATO committee drew up a three-year strategic plan with the overarching aim of “making CATO membership count”.

Initiatives have included the introduction of registration numbers for CATO members, a trade marketing push and education forums, the first, fittingly given our unsettled and uncertain times, on crisis management.

It’s a good start. But it’s only a start. More can and should be done to ensure CATO enjoys a healthy and closer relationship with its key distribution partners.

For a while now, tourist offices have been welcomed into CATO’S ranks, while research, marketing and car hire firms have been admitted as affiliates. Maybe now is the time to explore a structure that actively encourages and invites like-minded, independent travel agents into the fold.

It’s a framework that has worked in the UK through the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO), an organisation with a membership base of around 125 specialist wholesalers. Running alongside that is a body called AITO Specialist Travel Agents, which has become AITO’S preferred retail arm. The aim is a simple one; to marry independent tour operators with those agents committed to selling bespoke itineraries and specialist destinations. And it’s worked. Annual turnover has reached £53 million.

Surely a similar model could be explored by CATO, with the creation of a membership option for agents a good starting point.

Closer collaboration through membership of an organisation like CATO would build loyalty between agents and wholesalers, improve product knowledge and create a deeper understanding of each other’s issues.

It’s a tough market for wholesalers, particularly those – and there are many – which don’t have preferred status with the major retail groups. So the ability to get to know, work with and even strike commercial deals with agents they currently have no access to could only be of benefit.

Too often in recent times the relationship between wholesalers and the retail trade has been strained, partly because of the trend for agents to source product directly.

Nevertheless, the vast bulk of agents still need traditional wholesalers, particularly when the product is of the specialist type sold by many CATO members.

Such an initiative may take time to gain traction. But, as has been the case with AITO in the UK, it could lead to something extremely worthwhile for both wholesale and retail sectors of our industry.

‘ Surely a similar model could be explored by CATO’