Dnata to insist agents pass on customers’ contact details to avoid Thomas Cook collapse chaos
Dnata is to insist that all its agent partners pass on contact details of customers who book with their brands to avoid the problems it experienced after the collapse of Thomas Cook.
It’s B2B brands, Gold Medal and Travel 2, had ‘tens of thousands’ of forward bookings through Thomas Cook agents when Thomas Cook failed last month.
Dnata CEO Europe John Bevan said it took almost a week for the company to get the details of customers affected so they could tell them their holiday was safe.
Many customers mistakenly believed their holiday was no longer going ahead because they had booked through a Thomas Cook agent.
"There were all sorts of wranglings with the liquidators and total confusion. We began to notice duplicate bookings from customers who were unaware that their booking was still valid," said Bevan.
From now on, dnata will insist that agents pass on the names, emails and telephone numbers of customers at the time of booking.
"Our agent partners will understand," Bevan told delegates at the ABTA Convention.
"The reason agents haven’t passed on contact details to suppliers in the past is because they were afraid of operators nicking the customers, but we’re a B2B business so we have no interest in the data for our own use. We would only use that data if the agent fails."
He said the whole process is ‘old-fashioned’ and needs an overhaul, but admitted agents might not be so keen to pass on customers’ contact details to B2C suppliers.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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