ATN sits down with the outspoken deputy chairman of the Kanoo Group, Mishal Kanoo for his views on the travel industry.
There’s probably few people better placed to talk about the rapid transformations happening in the travel industry than Mishal Kanoo.
The multi-billion dollar Kanoo Group which Mishal is the driving force behind, pioneered the Gulf travel industry back in 1947 by being the first travel agency to register with IATA.
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Kanoo Travel has since mushroomed to become largest travel company in the Middle East, with a network of over 200 branches and a thousand employees across the region.
ONLINE BOOKINGS
Today, things are changing, and the advent of the internet is threatening the traditional role of the agent. Kanoo however resolutely dismimisses the idea that travel agents are doomed by online bookings.
“There was a perception about five years ago that travel agents were going to suffer because of internet ticketing and I don’t see that happening,” he says.
“I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist but I’m just saying it hasn’t become the dominant power that people perceived it to be, even though it is taking a bigger slice year by year.”
Kanoo argues that the fundamentals of being a good travel agency have not changed regardless of technology, and that’s to do with the focus on the customer.
“If tomorrow I have an issue or a problem with my ticket – like currently with this situation in Europe [the ash cloud] – what do I do? Who do I contact? At that point I think if I was to contact a 1800 or a toll free number they would be overwhelmed. What a travel agent does is act as an intermediary for the best benefit of the customer, that’s the whole purpose of having a travel agent. That’s what they’re supposed to do.”
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