Speak to my agent

By JAN CORBETT

Emma Nunn and Raoul Sabastian didn't use one but probably wish they had. They might now be wondering which was worse - having their trip of a lifetime ruined or being subjected to international humiliation.

At first, the young couple from Kent, England, did not think it odd that en route for a three-week holiday in Australia they landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and were transferred to a 25-seat propeller plane. Although Nunn, a nervous flyer, did worry that such a small plane might not make it all the way to Australia. They were probably relieved when a flight that normally took 22 hours, lasted a mere nine hours and 30 minutes.

Indeed it was not until they were on the ground that, as the Daily Telegraph put it, "they finally realised that their Australian dollars were unlikely to be accepted at the local bar". Rather than emerging to the delights of the Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach, they had landed in a town that even Canadians avoid visiting - Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Their mistake was to book their trip over the internet, not realising that there is more than one Sydney. It is the same pitfall encountered by people heading for Birmingham in the English midlands who have ended up in Alabama, or those dreaming of Santiago in Spain, who find themselves in Chile. Dhaka in Bangladesh and Dakar in Senegal have also hosted visitors intended for the other.

Even before there was the internet, Auckland International Airport received bewildered Americans looking for Oakland, near San Francisco.

Hearing of the young couple holed up in a Nova Scotia hotel room, the Association of British Travel Agents smugly suggested this was what you got when you booked your travel online. A spokesman crowed: "That is probably one of the drawbacks of the internet - there is not a brain in the middle."

Peter Lowry chuckles at this story. As chief executive officer of the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand (Taanz) he is at the forefront of a campaign to convince the travelling public that despite the growth in the availability of do-it-yourself online travel booking, using a travel agent is still best.

The threat that online travel booking could put agents out of business has been around for some time. But a struggling Air New Zealand's move to save itself by cutting travel agent's commissions on domestic flights - a policy common among airlines around the world - and its announcement this month of domestic fares that are at their cheapest if you book on the internet has clearly alarmed the agents.

Initially there were bitter threats to quit selling Air New Zealand fares altogether, especially from the Flight Centre, Australia's largest seller of Air New Zealand tickets, which handles $205 million of the carrier's business on both sides of the Tasman.

The strategy now, launched with an open letter in last weekend's newspapers, is to convince us that travel agents provide an indispensable public service.

"We are your advocates," says the letter, "providing personal service, knowledge and expertise, independent advice on all available fares, real value and above all genuine choice."

In fact, Taanz president James Langton dislikes being called an agent. "We're agents for nobody," he declares with a flourish. "We're advocates, managers, advisers."

Lowry insists this is not a Taanz versus Air New Zealand battle. Rather it is a campaign to remind the public about the service they get from their travel agent. For instance, Langton says that going to Air New Zealand's website does not tell you whether this is the cheapest fare on the day, although until the competition betters it, right now, it is.

Next to "G'day possums and welcome to Nova Scotia", Langton and Lowry's second favourite anecdote comes from a fogged-in Wellington airport, where delayed passengers were allegedly told by Air New Zealand to contact their travel agent and get rebooked. They say people who had booked themselves were told by the ground staff to phone reservations. "That's a perfect example of why you'd use a travel agent," says Langton, who says of course your agent would take care of all that.

Although Air New Zealand spokesman Mark Champion doubts the veracity of this story, he agrees the battle ground over who owns the client is shifting. Langton says when you travel you are the agent's customer, a statement Champion finds surprising. "We think our passengers are our customers."

According to Taanz, about 60 per cent of the travelling public book their domestic travel through agents. That figure rises to 80 per cent for international travellers.

Lowry is buoyed by a statistic that in the USA, after a similar agent-is-best campaign in the face of an internet-is-cheaper push from the airlines, 78 per cent of Americans still use agents to book their travel.

But that might be changing. Monday's Los Angeles Times reported storefront travel agencies have been closing across America at a rate of 300 a month since January, while this year online travel booking is expected to be up 31 per cent. Clearly, American travel agents are as defensive as ours and are on the counterattack.

They have succeeded in getting a Congressional commission to investigate whether Orbitz - the online booking site jointly owned by the airlines and which excludes agents - breaches US anti-trust laws. Its findings are due in November.

In the meantime, two domestic American carriers - Northwest and America West - are trying to beat what's become known as an airline addiction to web fares by either withdrawing from them entirely or offering them only in direct response to a competitor.

Here, Taanz is talking to the Commerce Commission about whether offering the cheapest fares on the internet amounts to predatory pricing. That seems unlikely.

At the same time it is taking legal advice on whether withdrawing commissions breaches the international agreement between Iata (the International Air Transport Association) and the travel agent's world body. "The deal says that Iata airlines [Air New Zealand is one] will remunerate agents for the sale of fares," says Langton. If the lawyers decide Air New Zealand is in breach, "we'll sue them", he thunders. Of course Air New Zealand's advice is that it has not violated those agreements.

Travel agents make their money on commission from the airlines, the rental car companies, the hotels and most of all, the 20 to 30 per cent on the travel insurance they sell.

But as the airline business has become increasingly precarious worldwide, the trend has been to cut agents' commissions and encourage internet booking. In response, travel agents have begun charging fees, which according to Consumer magazine can be up to $15 for domestic travel and $50 for an overseas trip. Consumer considers that could be money well spent on the experienced agent who has seen to the finer details of your world tour.

Air New Zealand spokesman Mark Champion insists the airline is not out to destroy travel agents and sees them as a necessary business partner. Although it is scrapping commissions, right now it is negotiating bonuses for agents, based on the number of fares they sell. The formula will remain a commercial secret, but will undoubtedly favour the bigger agencies.

Agents who use the internet to book for a client can still count that booking toward the bonus scheme.

As long as Qantas maintains commissions for its domestic travel, the public can be reasonably assured they are not being herded on to Air New Zealand by travel agents needing to meet the bonus threshold. But look out for the $10 agents' fee.

While agents might be biting their nails over stories of Air New Zealand's website being inundated with cheap fare hunters, only 37 per cent of New Zealand households have internet access, which the agents say makes the fares discriminatory. And in reality, only the highly adaptable forward-planning traveller will be flying between Auckland and Wellington for $59. That bottom-of-the-range price is not available at peak times like from 7am to 9am or 5pm to 7pm, or during school holidays or long weekends.

Cancel your $59 fare because it no longer suits you to go, and you lose the lot. The more flexibility you want from your cheaper domestic air travel, the more you will pay for it.

Harvey World Travel general manager Rob Earles thinks these fantastically low fares make the customer overly price-focused "which may not necessarily be what they want". Really? Rather, he thinks the travelling public wants to be looked after.

As the campaign to make us love our travel agents again will no doubt remind us, agents can cater for our every travel need, even booking the restaurant for dinner on Saturday night at the restaurant beside the Victoria Falls - a true, recent and fully satisfied request, says Earles.

Travel agents are going to have to adapt to survive. Langton says the goods ones are already offering extra services, such as filling out your departure and arrival cards for you.

Agents are convinced people still like to discuss travel with other people. American research again shows that while more people use the internet to find out what's available, they still go to their agent to book it.

After all, travel agents are salespeople, with all the seductive charm and polish that role demands. Hopefully they will have recently been to the places you have been saving for years to reach. They can recommend a hotel and know that if they make a mistake they will lose your repeat business. They are practised at sifting through complex travel choices.

Plus your computer is not yet sophisticated enough to tell you to remember your hepatitis shots, pack your sunscreen, and have suitable footwear to swim with so you don't shred the soles of your feet on coral.

Perhaps most importantly, you cannot phone it and yell at it from Sydney, Nova Scotia, if you finish up there by mistake.