Agents hard hit
Guldeep Singh Sahni, President, OTOAI feels agents have been adversely hit. “The travel agents and tour operators have been flooded with calls from customers, especially the ones who booked their holidays in advance. Advance booking customers, who have to shell out more than what was initially conveyed, are refusing to pay the rest of the amount claiming they have been cheated. We even have a rider saying that prices are subject to change and this is there for a reason. So yes, there have been cancella- tions. However, the volumes of bookings are so huge the impact of the cancellations has not yet been felt,” he says. Also, domestic fares are still too expensive and thus, the traveller is just altering his decision of holidays but is still going outbound, he adds. Ajay Prakash, Immediate Past President, TAFI feels the outbound travel market is quite stagnant at the moment. “We have neither registered growth nor degrowth. Traffic movement is quite slow,” he informs. According to him, though bookings for international travel took place usually two to three months in advance, any change in foreign
Advance booking customers are refusing to pay the rest of the amount With clients ‘becoming’ travel agents, we are left with very less margin
exchange rates were paid for by the traveller. Besides, there was a cash (forex) component travellers kept for personal use. Any rate escalation would naturally make that component more expensive, too.
Shravan Bhalla. General Secretary, OTOAI laments, “Nowadays with clients becoming travel agents themselves and airlines offering no commissions, we, as travel agents and tour operators, are left with very less margin. We offer clients the rates for air tickets, visas, etc in INR and for hotel bookings in foreign currency. Therefore, the profit margin remains the same. It’s just the cost of the package that increases.”
The outbound travel market is quite stagnant at the moment