First Choice set to follow Thomson with 7% commission
Tuesday, 25 Nov, 2005
0
ABTA Convention special report: First Choice will follow Thomson by reducing its base level of commission to 7%.
First Choice mainstream sector managing director Dermot Blastland said it could not afford to have higher costs than competitors and shrugged off threats by independent consortium Triton to stop selling operators which cut commission.
“We’ve not made an official decision yet, we’re still looking at the situation, but clearly we can’t allow our competitors’ costs to be lower than ours,” said Blastland.
“The thing about Triton is that they’ve come out of the tardis in the wrong year. The playing field has changed.
“What we’ve said to them is that we’d like to work with select clusters of agents which promote First Choice and pay them more, but they don’t want that. The consortiums always use the example of Sony being sold by all retailers, but that’s a ridiculous analogy because it doesn’t even happen anyway.
“The fact is you can’t have 1,800 retailers all promoting an operator, it doesn’t work like that.”
Blastland said operators were concerned that their commissions were being given away in the form of discounts by independent retailers.
“The interesting thing about the Thomson announcement is that it has said it wants to regain control of the pricing of its holidays. It is fed up of paying retailers a certain level of commission and then seeing them give that away. That is certainly an issue.”
Around 75% of Thomson’s business is sold through in-house retailers and Triton accounts for about 10% of Thomson’s business. Blastland estimated that its own in-house sales were slightly lower but that Triton accounted for a similar number of its bookings.
“If you look at the way the market’s going in terms of directional selling, everyone will have moved to where Thomson is within 18 months.”
MyTravel is refusing to comment, but is also expected to cut base level commissions to agents.
Report by Jeremy Skidmore in Marrakech
Look out for more stories and reaction to this breaking news story
Vegas’s Billion-Dollar Secrets – What They Don’t Want Tourists to Know
Visit Florida’s New CEO Bryan Griffin Shares His Vision for State Tourism with Graham
Chicago’s Tourism Renaissance: Graham Interviews Kristin Reynolds of Choose Chicago
Graham Talks with Cassandra McCauley of MMGY NextFactor About the Latest Industry Research
Destination International’s Andreas Weissenborn: Research, Advocacy, and Destination Impact
Graham and Don Welsh Discuss the Success of Destinations International’s Annual Conference
Graham and CEO Andre Kiwitz on Ventura Travel’s UK Move and Recruitment for the Role
Brett Laiken and Graham Discuss Florida’s Tourism Momentum and Global Appeal
Graham and Elliot Ferguson on Positioning DC as a Cultural and Inclusive Global Destination
Graham Talks to Fraser Last About His England-to-Ireland Trek for Mental Health Awareness
Kathy Nelson Tells Graham About the Honour of Hosting the World Cup and Kansas City’s Future
Graham McKenzie on Sir Richie Richardson’s Dual Passion for Golf and His Homeland, Antigua
ADS PRO 
Clearing CSS/JS assets' cache... Please wait until this notice disappears...
Updating... Please wait...
France prepares for a massive strike across all transports on September 18
Turkish tourism stalls due to soaring prices for accommodation and food
CCS Insight: eSIMs ready to take the travel world by storm
Germany new European Entry/Exit System limited to a single airport on October 12, 2025
Airlines suspend Madagascar services following unrest and army revolt