In times past, travel agents were required to use proprietary connections and terminals in order to serve their customers. Connections to the Sabre system, Worldspan, Apollo or Amadeus meant incurring significant monthly overhead in order to manage their clients' itineraries. The systems didn't use the internet as their backbone and therefore have been expensive to implement and maintain. Agents bore the brunt of the expense and thereby derived reasonable commissions for helping clients make their travel plans.
Today, replication of all of the processes on internet-based systems isn't quite there yet but this recent article published on C/Net: Airlines Spur Travel Agency Shift indicates that the solution may not be too far off. The total solution would represent a tremendous saving for travel agencies and will ultimately mean that travel management companies will be able to shrug off some of the costs inhibiting them from moving forward.
It's my view that travel agents provide an essential service to the tourism industry. We'll see a new revolution in travel if the major hotel networks and airlines realize the same.
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I agree. The issue is one of players in the industry jockeying their respective resources with an eye to delivering better services to the traveling public.
My view is that until we have provided competitive ways to serve the entire industry, top-to-bottom, there will be room for some of the older delivery models to continue to make their voices heard. Even travel agents will capitalize on some of these new methodologies.
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