SERENDIPITY Worldwide
Group (SWG) has revised
its criteria for accepting
ITCs to the consortium to
ensure that only bona fide
travel professionals are
incorporated into the group.
As a result, the group has
seen about 200 members
leave during the course of
the year.
Dinesh Naidoo, group
operations director of SWG,
says the group is on a drive
for high-quality ITCs rather
than a large number.
He says the group’s
criteria were changed at the
beginning of this year to
ensure that all members
were PCI DSS compliant.
Additional internal
requirements were also
introduced, such as prior
GDS experience and financial
literacy.
“We want to eliminate
fraud from the group and
have better control over our
stable of members. With a
smaller membership and
higher joining criteria, it is
more difficult for things to slip
through the cracks.
“We have also determined
that financial business
knowledge is essential to run
a successful ITC. Things can
often go wrong when a good
consultant starts up an ITC
without a full understanding
of financial procedures,”
said Dinesh.
He added that the
rationalisation was an ongoing
process, saying that the few
ITCs that had not reached
compliance but wanted to
continue with the group
were on probation for the
next three months to rectify
deficiencies.
Should compliance not
occur, these contracts would
be terminated by the end of
the year.
