Design A Winning Brochure OnlineMost people assume that if they go through a brochure design online of the leading high-street travel agencies, they will be offered a representative selection of holidays: from the smaller, specialist companies as well as the large, mainstream operators. But, as some brochure design online demonstrate, holidays offered by small tour operators are rarely promoted by big travel agents, or even represented among the well-stocked shelves of brochure design online. This is partly because of the sheer number of operators involved around 700.
But there is another reason why large multiples do not go out of their way to promote small operators: the latter are unable to match the incentives and inducements such as high commission rates and perks for counter staff offered by some of their larger competitors. The survey covered the six largest high street travel agency chains, which between them have about 40% of the agency-sold package holiday market. The surveyors first asked each of their head offices whether any of six specified small operators' brochures were available at their branches or whether their packages could be booked. They then visited their high-street outlets anonymously to find out how precisely company policy is observed at branch level. The six tour brochures specified were chosen for by the Association of Independent Tour Operators (Aito) to represent a cross section of small, well-established companies specialising in Mediterranean destinations. Each belongs to Abta and Aito: Greek Islands Club, Sunvil Holidays, Timsway, Lotus Travel, Magic of Italy and Paloma Holidays. WHSmith claims to have the 'widest selection of brochures of the big six agencies'. Timsway, Magic of Italy, and in certain regions, including London Paloma literature should all be on display; Lotus should be available. They visited WHSmith's outlet in Holborn, London, but with even worse results. None of the literature was available to take away. The assistant gave them the telephone numbers of the operators except that of Lotus, which she could not find. However, at Lunn Poly's Holborn branch the Timsway brochure was not on the shelves; its literature and that of Magic of Italy were fetched from a back room. And, when asked about the other four operators, the agent did not propose alternatives but suggested we shopped around at other travel agencies. Thomas Cook grades holi day companies into three categories: "winners" (such as Thomson and Intasun, which are automatically displayed);"recommended" (brochure display is at the branch manager's discretion); and "authorised" (Thomas Cook will not go out of its way to promote these, but its staff will have brochures on file and can sell their holidays). To sell a package from an operator not included in this list, counter staff must first get authorisation from head office. |