![]() “Book it through the site, book it through the portal,” said Walker, addressing the issue of unwieldy call centre hold times that have been the bane of travel agents throughout the pandemic. It’s a topic that CATO chair Brett Walker addressed as well, during his keynote session, ‘Restarting and Rebuilding Your Relationship with Tour Operators’. Gedeon noted that she’s hearing from TPI advisors enduring call wait times of six hours or more. At the same time, said Adamo, “we as an industry need to do better with putting the right online tools into the hands of agents,” to help them do their jobs and avoid hours-long wait times on the phone. With wait times for supplier call centres still sky high, Adamo also urged agents to resist the urge to make a phone call to a supplier if something can be done online instead. The need for upfront commission payment, as agents hit the 18-month mark with no real revenue, has become a key issue during the pandemic. James says TL Network Canada hasn’t seen too many cancellations: “There is concern about drop-off, but we haven’t seen that drop-off yet.” Gedeon said TPI’s strongest message to its advisors is to make sure supplier T&Cs offer maximum flexibility.Īdamo stressed the need for commissions to be paid upon final payment, at a minimum, as opposed to upon departure. Paradis noted that there’s a concern that strong forward bookings could be misleading, since many Canadians are still cancelling travel plans amid pandemic concerns. We are taking 30 day in bookings like I’ve never seen before.” Last-minute getaways are ticking up too: “A lot of pure leisure bookings, very near in. It puts in one place a great deal of information about testing, vaccine requirements, needed documents, helpful travel advice about things like checking times, and even details about where we flying as well.”Īlso at the ACTA Summit, a panel discussion hosted by ACTA President Wendy Paradis, ‘A Look at 2022 Travel Trends, Challenges & Opportunities’, included insights from TPI CEO Zeina Gedeon American Express Global Business TravelCanada’s VP and General Manager, Patrick Doyle Transat’s Chief Distribution Officer (and President, TDC), Joe Adamo and TL Network Canada VP, Christine James.Īmerican Express Global Business TravelCanada’s VP and GM, Patrick DoyleĪdamo says that TDC retail locations started to get busy over the summer, with advance bookings for 20. Says Guillemette: “I cannot emphasize enough how useful we believe this tool will be for our customer and agents. “In some instances, we’ve seen demand for sun that is above 2019 or pre-pandemic levels.”Īmong other initiatives, this month Air Canada relaunched its Travel Ready hub on its website. ![]() To winter sun destinations, Guillemette says Air Canada is optimistic about its recovery to those markets, based on early bookings for the remainder of 2021 and early 2022, both for Air Canada and ACV. As for international travel, “we’re already observing healthy demand signals for Europe into 2022.” Air Canada’s international schedule, released in July, included the resumption of 17 routes and 11 destinations, including a return to Vienna, Dublin, Zurich, and new services to Doha and Cairo. ![]() Then in July, the airline announced its summer schedule. In June 2021 Air Canada announced services to 50 Canadian airports. “But some sectors and SME businesses have shown signs of resiliency throughout the pandemic,” she said. Business travel outbound from Canada is still soft – lagging behind the U.S., as Guillemette notes – with only 29% of Canadians planning travel for business purposes. Travellers heading out in the near future say they will travel next for leisure purposes, according to Air Canada’s stats.
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