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.
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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.
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