South African travel consultants are perhaps even tougher than they realise.
Hundreds of travel professionals from across the region have told Travel News that it is the constant cancellations by airlines, the lack of availability of visa appointments and shortage of airline seats that are their biggest challenges currently, and that these are a much bigger problem than personal burnout.
More than 380 travel agents participated in a poll by Travel News over two weeks in June that asked: “As business recovers, what are the top three challenges for agents?”
‘Lack of availability of visa appointments’ (25%); ‘Shortage of airline seat capacity’ (18%); and ‘Constantly changing bookings as airlines cancel and move flights’ (12%) were our readers’ top three choices.
‘Keeping up to speed with entry regulations country by country’ was next, with 11% of the vote.
While many travel agencies have had to deal with unfathomable challenges – reduced income, retrenchments, incredible amounts of extra work, personal hardship, lockdowns and closed schools – during and post COVID-19, personal burnout was fifth (10%).
‘Long wait times for responses and quotes from suppliers’ (9%) and ‘Understaffed suppliers, which sometimes means phones go unanswered’ was an issue for 7% of the audience.
‘More risk for agents’ was not perceived as a major challenge, nor was ‘Lack of staff/co-workers’. These two obstacles only got 4% of votes.
CEO of Asata, Otto de Vries, said the results were telling and reflected Asata’s priorities for the year ahead.
Asata has attempted to engage a number of international embassies and governments about the long wait times for visas and visa appointments in South Africa. De Vries revealed that the association was also working through the ECTA (European travel agents’ associations network) to raise the issue abroad.
In view of the capacity crisis in domestic airline seats because of Comair’s withdrawal, De Vries said Asata had also met with local airlines to get a better idea of their strategy.
Members of Asata could keep abreast of regulatory and other COVID-19-related changes by checking Asata’s resource centre, he added, and a webinar on agent risk is due to happen soon. “We will continue to provide updates on what you, the members, need to look out for.”
The irony of the current situation has not escaped De Vries. He agreed that it was massively challenging to agents that after all the strain of having no business, agencies were now very busy dealing with high volumes, a very complex operating environment and various new challenges. “Now that there is an opportunity to make money again, we can’t get visas, or seats!
“This is still your chance to shine and deliver a result that travellers would not achieve by doing it on their own,” he said.
