27 October 2009

Canadian BCAA closing storefronts

Reports are that travel giant BCAA is significantly scaling back its travel agency services, closing its storefront travel operations in all locations, effective January 15 of next year.

BCAA Travel will continue to offer services to travel customers by phone, via its Burnaby-based customer contact center, and online, via its travel booking services on www.BCAA.com.

BCAA maintains that it will "ensure all existing travel bookings are fulfilled and that sufficient staff are available to meet customer needs through to the completion of their travel plans."

The decision to significantly scale back BCAA's travel offerings was driven by fundamental changes in the travel industry, explains President and CEO, Bill Bullis. He said:

"The decline of agency commissions has made it very difficult to operate an independent travel agency model profitably," says Bullis.

"What's more, the emergence of the internet has enabled suppliers to cut distribution costs by selling directly to customers, and increased the comfort of consumers to do their own trip-planning and booking. Travel revenues have been steadily declining, and BCAA has been unable to operate travel profitably for several years," he added.

The decision means the loss of 157 full-time and part-time positions.

"Scaling back our travel operations to this extent was our least preferred alternative," said Bullis.

By David Wilkening

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BCAA is a British Columbia Agency

BCAA - British Columbia Automobile Association - was a side business for the automobile club. Hopefully, standalone travel agents will benefit from these closures however painful it is for BCAA employees. At least British Columbia has a provincial travel protection scheme where agencies fail outright.

By J Hewson, Thursday, October 29, 2009