Not sure I would change anything about it - the travel industry is large and complex and evolution is better for it that any govt. mandate could ever be.

from a Consumer perspective: I would change the uncertainty of airline travel. You never know how long the security lines will be, if your flight will be on time (or even just not canceled), who will be sitting in the seat next to you, if you’ll be able to fit your luggage in the overhead bin, if you’ll be offered a beverage or a snackbox (even to buy). When I buy an airline ticket, I would like more certainty.

The one thing I would suggest is to improve communications between companies and consumers. I think it’s unfortunate that hidden fees, misleading advertising, unexplained delays and other such nonsense is causing undue frustration to both consumers and front-line travel company workers. (I have worked in the travel industry and I’m a consumer).

In the past two weeks alone, I’ve been frustrated by misrepresented promotions, unexplained train delays and new procedures for bus travel in my area that are not clearly documented. All of these situations could be remedied with some honesty and a better communications program.

As a travel agent.

The price…. I want to see the true price… not a price plus this that and the other, no point in starting at 99p if it no matter what I do is going to cost me £100. In other words I want go backwards in time.

If I were an airline, I’d get rid of all the stupid crap people petulantly expect to receive on board, including food and drinks. I’d perfect the basics and be the model of efficiency, even if I had to build my own terminals to do it. I would show exactly how much everything cost to put a plane up in the air and have it land on the other side. Including the profit margin. Then I would make all seats in the same class be the same price all the time, no matter what, and announce with reasoning the need for a price hike. I’d be unapologetic about profit, and I’d justify every penny spent.

One thing I wish would magically change worldwide is that every city would have a fast, cheap, efficient and easy way to get from the airport to the city center’s major transportation hub.

That’s it! Everything else, I LOVE.

Oh except that America seriously needs to get a national train network that’s fast, cheap, efficient and easy.

I would like to change how we treat the UK. Tourists must gasp at the amount of litter, graffiti, green areas built on, and lack of respect for our monuments which attract millions of tourists.

Faster, friendly security checks at airports would be what I would like to change.

I am wheelchair bound and unsuccessfully tried to visit travel agencys in Bristol. I needed assistance to get in to the shop by all three of them. I would like to see more wheelchair friendly travel agencys.

Like everyone else I would like to see more transparency about price, despite the new regulations it is still the case that a flight quoted at £0.01 by Ryanair turns out to cost £30.00 plus by the time you have paid the taxes paid to get checked in paid for your bag to go in the hold etc. Also better communication at airports when the flight is delayed. Being stuck airside with no information and small kids is a total nightmare at least if you knew what was going on and how long it would take you could devise a game plan to keep them occupied. On one occasion I was delayed almost 12 hours overnight in Spain with a toddler and an infant and there was no food no water and all the reps magically vanished or actually ran fast in the opposite direction when I approached toask for information!

Good Topic Darren.

For many years i have campaigned with regards to discounting in the Travel Industry and being able to offer a fair price to the consumer for the right holiday suitable for the client and not one that the Agent has to sell because of it’s parent Tour operators dictating what has to be sold even if they have to sell it at a loss.

The Industry has definatly changed over the last 25 years, gone are the queues on Boxing Day when people just waited for the Christmas ads announcing the arrival of the Summer Brochure and the days of booking early too secure the best prices.

These were the days when tour operators used to work on Profit and margins instead of today’s operators who think that Volume is more important. What’s the Point of Flying a 100 Passengers at a fare of £10.00 each When 50 seats at £30.00each is more profitable?

I want today’s Consumer to know exactly What they are paying, What to expect, What time of year is better to book and then for them to come back having had value for money and to re-book another holiday.

Is It too much too ask of Tour Operators to go back to the old way of thinking, 1st Edition brochures will have the best possible deals and offers to encourage early bookers so that they can trust that no other better deal will be gained by booking later. 2nd edition brochures will have a 2.5% increase, 3rd edition brochures a 5% rise and 4th edition brochures and those booking within 8 weeks of departure a 7.5% increase.

Better still Why not just have a 1st edition brochure and forget the re-prints helping save the planet and and an incremental price increase depending on how close to the departure date the client is booking.
Secondly, Why do Tour Operators, Cruise Lines and Tour Operators offer Luxury, Premium Products at a Highly inflated Price and then offer a huge discount at Launch and then offer the Client a further 5% internet discount.

Whilst the consumer is happy,something has to give and it’s usually Quality and service that disappear as Profits and margins are stripped to the bare bones.

Take an all inclusive in Europe, The Biggest UK Tour Operator goes to the Hotellier and says we want you to offer all-inclusive but next year we want to pay you 10% less than this year.

The Operator sells it at lets say £450.00 ,Take out the agents commission , Take Out the Operators Margins, take out the cost of selling ,Phone bills, advertising, Take out the Flight element, take out the transfer costs, Reps Fees etc etc.

The Hotellier is being asked to produce an All-inclusive Product and the Operator wants to pay them between £5 to £10.00 per day. So you can imagine what standards to expect at crappy All-inclusive Holiday Resort ! And yet this year because of the Weak Pound more and more people have been asking for all-inclusive holidays. ( I’d love to know the statistics on salmonella poisining this year?)

The Cruise lines now have too much spare capacity as Huge 3,000 passenger Cruise ships are now sailing our oceans. The Discounting in the cruise industry has now gone to ridiculous proportions, and “The Cruise Clubs” who are providing Volume for the Cruise Companies virtually Selling without making any profit at all. Some actually selling below net costs. Have they forgotten the demise of Cruise Control not so many years ago?

So All I want is for Tour operators, Cruise Companies and the Travel Industry to get back to basics. Let the Consumer be offered a fair and sensible Price for their holiday, so that they actually respect the Price they have paid is fair for the Quality and the distance they have travelled for their holiday. One Price Quoted by all, so clients don’t have to shop around and then can decide if they have better service from one Agency to another.

I’m a firm believer in what goes around comes around, and With Tour Operators cutting further Capacity and flight seats for 2009, It is now the time for clients to be booking early, Let’s hope the Operators don’t disappoint them, and offer them the best possible deal for doing so.

Great topic,

I would like to change something radical. Tourist can change them self!

Travel is to easy. Travellers do not need to use any brain power. Everything is arranged, all inclusive, prepared, available if you only ask. From backpackers to luxury travellers only a few people still truly explore the cultures and countries that they visit.

Backpackers start working on the other site off the world for half a year, go on prearranched tours to the major attractions and use backpacker transport options to go from a to b. Ask a backpacker if he met interesting people on his journey. Sure he says yes, and for sure that will be other backpackers, not locals. Is this travel you want it to be?

Luxery travelers go to a 5 star oasis in the middle off a dessert, where everything is arranched. It take 2 hours to walk to the nearest village so it is not possible to leave your resort. It is ike a prison with nice temperatures. Is this travel you want it to be?

The travel industry creates the possibility for tourist to find food from home, television from home, language from home, comfort from home, neighbours from home. It creates a community within the countries where tourist travel so the tourist do not have to see anything from the country they visit. Is this travel you want it to be?

Let travel happen to you. Enjoy the freedom, the nature and the locals on your travel. Let me entertain myself on my travels.

@ Lee
To re-print brochures into various editions costs an awful lot of money. Times have changed, and customers should embrace the internet for price changes and offers. Incremental price increases from the first edition brochure aren’t practical from a business point of view as you never know how each hotel is going to sell in a certain period. Having the flexibility to change the prices is key to maximising profit/minimising loss

To ask for a single price from all operators is also never going to happen for various reasons, primarily competition (”if i offer this hotel £20 less than my competitor, I might make a small loss, but increase the chance of retaining a customer next time they book”) but you also have to consider whether it is accommodation which the operator have as paid allocation and they *need* to sell it, even if it’s at a loss. A small loss is better than a much larger one!

Cutting commitments from tour ops will mean better deals for those booking early, but if they are selling less, then they will need to make up their margins somehow - which is more than likely where the late “deals” will come in higher than people expect.

I still think that there is a lot of improvement to be done on all Travel websites. As some people have touched on above, much more in-depth information about destinations, resorts and hotels.

I personally don’t think there’s enough emphasis on bringing tourism into the UK or promoting it to those who live here. There are so many incredible places in the UK to holiday, yet the majority of the talk is primarily about overseas travel.

From an online travel company perspective, I’d like to see simple, powerful open source software that is customized for the travel industry and can be embraced by smaller mom and pop travel providers (whether they be small hotels, tour operators or other services.)

Similar to how blogging platforms such as Wordpress simplified web publishing, I think it would be helpful for small travel businesses that lack technical expertise to easily showcase their services and have some sort of bare bones e-commerce engine (maybe just linked to Paypal?) This could help bring greater awareness to the many, many wonderful travel services out there whom are often overlooked, partly because they have limited - or zero - existing internet presence, and thus are hard to find online by travelers.

I would change the efficiency and cost of train travel. In Europe they have high speed rail networks that are reasonably priced. The state of the rail networks in the UK are completely appalling and the cost is extortionate. Train travel in the US and Australia is slow and inefficient.

Also, I would want some way of preventing beautiful natural places such as the Costa de Sol in Spain, the Gold Coast in Australia and Phuket in Thailand becoming high-rise resort hellholes. The old protest song Big Yellow Taxi (”they paved paradise and put up a parking lot, with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hotspot”) couldn’t be more true.

I just want two more inches of seat room on airline flights. That is all.

I think that now is the time for the major airlines to do all of their cutting and get service down to where they need it to be to stay profitable. The current economy is ripe for this type of action and could be refreshing to travelers who no longer know what to expect. As part of this process airlines would be required to communicate more effectively with travelers about delays, cancellations, etc. and take responsibility for such delays.

Car rental companies should do a better job of fitting car types to the traveler. If I say I need a 7 passenger vehicle and I am flying in from out of town, I probably also need room for luggage so a Toyota Highlander won’t do, when I originally rented a Chevy Trailblazer.

Automated call/reservation systems should go away for all travel sectors. Travel is a customer service industry and people are paying a lot for the experience. Why ruin it for them? If they need help or have questions take care of them.

Travel is largely about the experience, not the simple steps of getting there. That experience has been lost in the last 10 or so years. It needs to start from the research and booking process and carry through all of the way until check out and post stay emails.

It’s too hard to pick one thing! Caitlin is spot on about the UK/US rail networks, I like Peter’s comments about software, and Shane’s comments about customer service are good too.

I’ll give you a curveball: Less of the purple prose in travel copywriting (I guess that goes for the marketing and journalism sides). Replace it with detail. I don’t need to be told something’s a ‘hidden gem’, I need to know how it’s hidden and what makes it a gem. Sounds trivial, but it’s part of how the travel industry approaches talking to consumers.

Or maybe I’m just very fussy about prose…

Good idea for a post, I enjoyed reading the comments

1. Honest airline pricing without all the hidden fees

2. Friendler airports (they have got much more horrible in the last few years) without the lottery of how long the process takes

All up, I don’t think the industry (from a consumer viewpoint) is too bad.

With regards to Caitlin and rail networks I think it depends in the UK where on the network you live. I do not use the train long distance often (about 10-12 times a year) in last year had no delays and for my ticket to London have not paid more than £25 return. By car this would take me 3 hours instead of 2.5 by train and probably cost more in petrol. Locally which I travel more often, I not had a train more than 10 minutes late and normally pay about the same as 3 hours parking. What I hate is all the buses seem to leave 5 minutes before the train arrives. Why can we not have joined up thinking?