Industry Disunited

A lack of unity under the Dubai Travel and Tour Agents Group (DTTAG) means the body is paralysed to implement change. Leo Fewtrell, general manager, DTTAG explains the challenges he is up against.

ATN: Why doesn’t DTTAG have full membership of all the travel trade in Dubai as trade bodies do in other markets?
In Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah, Bahrain, in order to get a license as a travel agent you have to be a member of the travel agent group there. In Dubai you don’t. Unfortunately the Civil Aviation here will not even entertain the idea of supporting us or making it mandatory for agents to join DTTAG.

ATN: Why not - given that this model has been successful in other markets?
For the rationale that Dubai doesn’t do this kind of thing. We don’t force, we have an open skies policies - which is ludicrous.

As I’ve said to them so many times – if you want travel and tourism groups to behave in a proper and respectable manner, you need to regulate the industry for the protection of the end-user. And DTTAG is far less likely to get the body officially recognised while we still only have 60 odd members.

ATN: It sounds like a chicken and egg situation. So what is DTTAG doing to bring more travel agent members on board?
We are constantly trying to recruit. We write to the agents, email them, phone them every month. We have just now started another push where we have asked each member of the executive committee to recruit another member.
 

We’ve set up a DTTAG linked-in discussion group because we want to encourage people to join. We want people to give their comments in a forum of what the professionals think about the business that they’re in.

We’ve just started a DTTAG e-zine. We have a website where we put on special offers - things of interest to the travel trade. We look to get discounts to the travel trade. We are getting more and more things out there. We are not trying to marginalise non-members.

ATN: Why have you only managed to get 60 members so far? Is it a question of cost?
The fee for the majority of the agents is AED2000 a year – if you cannot afford AED 2000 you shouldn’t be in the business.

I even did a deal with EmQuest and I got them to agree that they would pay the sponsorship fee for ten agents who are using EmQuest and some of the agents here are so appalling that half of them wouldn’t even send the forms in.

People go in to those agencies and buy tickets and the people who are running them are not even capable of filling in a form. Would you buy from them if you knew that?

It’s a case of being bone idle and lazy - and yes you can use those words.

ATN: How important is it that the travel trade in Dubai is regulated?
This is desperately needed. The Civil Aviation Authority needs to accept that before they grant a travel agent licence they need to be a member of DTTAG.

They are the key to specifying membership of DTTAG as a pre-requisite which is what happens in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi and elsewhere.

If that happened we could put in requirements for agencies where we look at their professionalism, as well as ensuring that agencies could make a minimum return on transactions.

Without regulation all it does is gives companies the incentive to run away which has happened in the past. They think, why don’t I just sell a thousand tickets at a big discount this week and take the money and run.

ATN: Would DTTAG look to regulate the service fees?
We came out at a General Body meeting a few years ago and got everybody to agree on transaction fees and service charges. Immediately I was getting calls saying this agency is not doing it, that agency is not doing it.

We’ve got no power to enforce it. This is what I keep telling the Chamber of Commerce and Industry – how can we have a regulatory body when we can’t enforce anything? We can’t kick anyone out. We can’t suspend anyone’s license.

ATN: How hard is DTTAG pushing for support from the authorities - surely being backed by DNATA must hold some sway?
We’ve met with Civil Aviation, met with Chamber of Commerce, met with DTCM - trying to get meetings with them is very tough. And we’ve just got nowhere. It’s of no concern – no interest to them, they are paying lip service to it. We have tried, we keep trying. This is what we deal with on a daily and weekly basis. We are committed to this.

ATN: Without official backing is DTTAG a redundant organisation?
No. DTTAG does provide a key role – we have a relationship now with IATA that didn’t exist before. Agents used to get no response from IATA and DTTAG has changed that.

We provide free training for staff to try to educate, improve and incentivise the staff. There is a rationale to improve the industry overall. When the municipality introduces new rules we are the only channel of communication for agents.

We provide support to members; we take up issue with the airlines. An individual agency would never be listened to by an airline, but they do at least respond to DTTAG.

The strength of DTTAG is although we are not representing the majority of agents, we represent the agents that sell almost 80 percent of business in Dubai.

ATN: TMCs are calling for a clampdown across the industry on the credit terms given to corporate clients. Could DTTAG work with TMCs to implement this?
The one thing I always say to people is: never give credit. If you’re going to give credit give 30 days.

If they want more than 30 days put in a penalty clause, an extra two percent interest if it’s over 30 days, five percent if it goes to 60 days as that way at least if you ever don’t get paid from companies that are delaying and delaying, at least you’ll make money, but don’t give more than 30 days. Don’t accept it.

The impetus is to get accounts but why get accounts is you’re not going to get paid and your servicing them? The problem is because of the lack of professionalism in the industry. It goes back to the fact that it’s a discount driven market which wasn’t such a problem when airlines paid commission.

ATN: Could DTTAG work with agents to bring in those standards?
Again in Dubai it’s difficult if you can’t mandate that. But that’s something that if they think we could succeed in that it would be worth attempting – we have not done that in the past but definitely we should raise it.

ATN: What do you ultimately hope to achieve with DTTAG?
I’d like the business to be regulated. I want it to be fair. I am very passionate about it, but I believe that you can’t affect change from outside.

You have to be within the movement to affect change. You’re not going to do it by standing on the outside. To make it work, you all have to stick together and travel agents here have found it impossible to stick together over anything over the last 25 years.

There is a solution; there is an answer to it. If the agents would just for once get themselves together: DTTAG isn’t the best that it could be, but let’s make it the best that it could be.

Let’s have our say, let’s all get together and join – let’s have an organisation that comprises the majority of the travel trade and let’s mandate the travel agent heads to go to Civil Aviation on behalf of 200 or 250 agents and represent them – not 50 or 60.

DTTAG is so much stronger than any single travel agent here, because we have 60 of the biggest on board. But 60 out of 300 doesn’t have the same impact compared to 200 out of 300.

To join Dubai Travel and Tour Agents Group visit www.dttag.com and complete the online form.