Guest Comment: Government is ignoring the travel industry and its customers.
The Government is ignoring the travel industry and its millions of customers, says AITO chairman Martin Garland, Expressions Holidays. It can’t be bothered to take us seriously, although travel is a growth industry and is one of the biggest employers worldwide. That’s a lot of votes and a lot of income tax, National Insurance, Corporation Tax and VAT payments to the Government. Enough, you’d think, to make them listen to us. Commonsense does not apply. The Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) and other industry bodies have been lobbying for airlines to be bonded for over 10 years – since Air Europe collapsed in 1991. The airline industry has changed dramatically – state-owned airlines are not the norm anymore and even Swissair went bust, the last thing one would have imagined before it happened. There’s loads more capacity on the market, and it’s not selling. The no-frills airlines have shaken up the airline side of things and, with the millions of extra seats they’ve brought into the equation, have destabilised it. What’s the betting that we’ll have one or more airline collapses this year? Fine for the consumers who book through an operator – their money will be protected. Not so fine for the poor chap who booked direct – although it’s the same flight and the direct-booker might have sat next to the tour operator’s customer. Once there’s a problem, things are different. The direct booker will lose his money, and he’ll have to fork out again to get himself home. Or, if he’s yet to travel, he’ll have to fork out more money to get himself there to fulfil his contract with the accommodation provider. Why this inconsistency? How is the consumer supposed to know that he’s protected if he books on one telephone number but not if he books on another? That is, after all, what it boils down to. We hear Government claims that it is supportive of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Really? We have bonding, the Package Travel Directive and VAT on TOMS to contend with and pay for. We can’t accept subsidies. Yet our competitors, the airlines, also selling flights and accommodation (via slightly devious means, but the result is the same), don’t have to bond, are outside the Package Travel Directive and don’t have to pay VAT. They have, until the Ryanair ruling this week, accepted subsidies. Careful, logical and considered argument plainly doesn’t work with Government. Perhaps we should bring back the stocks and rotten tomatoes…?
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