Comments on: It’s time to scrap holiday brochures http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/ - Discussions on travel consumer issues Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:21:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Martin http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/#comment-153683 Martin Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:49:29 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4805#comment-153683 I too think that online booking is over-rated and that the whole internet thing is hyped beyond belief. Nothing beats being able to browse a brochure in the luxury of your own home. Also, the cost to the environment is an interesting one. Printers and paper suppliers have gone to great lengths to produce more environmentally products. The range of recycled paper available now is incredible, and even when it is not recycled it is usually from well managed forests. Vegetable based inks are now very common, and paper is naturally bio-degradable. So the argument is not entirely sound when it comes to the environment. Does anybody consider just how much power is used to power the internet? For example, the servers in the East Anglia region take more power in a year than the whole of Ipswich. And experts say that the internet will have a greater carbon footprint than the whole of the airline industry! How green is that? We are all hypocritics to some extent. With green issues we only pick on the easy targets so we can, at least, seen to be doing something. I too think that online booking is over-rated and that the whole internet thing is hyped beyond belief. Nothing beats being able to browse a brochure in the luxury of your own home. Also, the cost to the environment is an interesting one. Printers and paper suppliers have gone to great lengths to produce more environmentally products. The range of recycled paper available now is incredible, and even when it is not recycled it is usually from well managed forests. Vegetable based inks are now very common, and paper is naturally bio-degradable. So the argument is not entirely sound when it comes to the environment.

Does anybody consider just how much power is used to power the internet? For example, the servers in the East Anglia region take more power in a year than the whole of Ipswich. And experts say that the internet will have a greater carbon footprint than the whole of the airline industry! How green is that? We are all hypocritics to some extent. With green issues we only pick on the easy targets so we can, at least, seen to be doing something.

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]]> By: Simon http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/#comment-151619 Simon Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:47:20 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4805#comment-151619 @ Alex One problem is any operator that stops producing brochures will lose sales. But the bigger problem is that it's very hard to quantify your drop in sales. You could contact 100% of your client base and you might get 100% response saying they would still book if you dropped the brochure but the reality would be completely different. It's a leap in the dark that makes it a hugely risky/reckless decision. @ Alex
One problem is any operator that stops producing brochures will lose sales. But the bigger problem is that it’s very hard to quantify your drop in sales. You could contact 100% of your client base and you might get 100% response saying they would still book if you dropped the brochure but the reality would be completely different.

It’s a leap in the dark that makes it a hugely risky/reckless decision.

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]]> By: Alex Bainbridge http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/#comment-151587 Alex Bainbridge Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:09:20 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4805#comment-151587 @Simon I agree with the example of the luxury tour operator who feel it is necessary to retain brochures to continue working with their existing customer base. However new tour operators are constantly launching that don't have brochures - and they focus on building a customer base that doesn't require brochures (and probably, at this moment in time, losing potential customers who desire a brochure). The question then is - will the tour operators (in 5 years time (not 50!)) who haven't moved to brochureless distribution be able to build a customer base / brochure free expertise - when they suddenly come to the realisation that others competing with them don't have brochures - and have strong customer lists of happy customers who have booked without brochures. That is the key decision point - keep printing brochures, keep feeding the existing customer base..... or go brochureless, build a new customer base, and probably disrupt your existing customer base. For new tour operators without existing customer bases it is a much easier decision to make. For existing tour operators with a strong customer base addicted to brochures it is one hell of a tricky decision to decide to stop printing them. @Simon

I agree with the example of the luxury tour operator who feel it is necessary to retain brochures to continue working with their existing customer base.

However new tour operators are constantly launching that don’t have brochures – and they focus on building a customer base that doesn’t require brochures (and probably, at this moment in time, losing potential customers who desire a brochure).

The question then is – will the tour operators (in 5 years time (not 50!)) who haven’t moved to brochureless distribution be able to build a customer base / brochure free expertise – when they suddenly come to the realisation that others competing with them don’t have brochures – and have strong customer lists of happy customers who have booked without brochures.

That is the key decision point – keep printing brochures, keep feeding the existing customer base….. or go brochureless, build a new customer base, and probably disrupt your existing customer base. For new tour operators without existing customer bases it is a much easier decision to make. For existing tour operators with a strong customer base addicted to brochures it is one hell of a tricky decision to decide to stop printing them.

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]]> By: Simon http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/#comment-151586 Simon Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:47:53 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4805#comment-151586 Travel brochures are here for a long time yet. One luxury tour operator (who didn't even sell through agents) decided to stop doing brochures about six years ago and invest the 6-figure sum saved on web development and client events. It almost killed the company. Six months and several redundancies later, brochures were back. Were they just acting a bit too soon? I don't think so, People like brochures. They like the portability, the photos are better than online and for a luxury operator it is a way of showing the quality. I'd put a tenner on brochures still being around in 50 year's time. Travel brochures are here for a long time yet. One luxury tour operator (who didn’t even sell through agents) decided to stop doing brochures about six years ago and invest the 6-figure sum saved on web development and client events. It almost killed the company. Six months and several redundancies later, brochures were back.

Were they just acting a bit too soon? I don’t think so, People like brochures. They like the portability, the photos are better than online and for a luxury operator it is a way of showing the quality. I’d put a tenner on brochures still being around in 50 year’s time.

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]]> By: Deborah http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/08/28/time-scrap-holiday-brochures/#comment-151576 Deborah Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:48:17 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4805#comment-151576 More than 1/2 of my clients still like to have a brochure. Not so much hotel brochures but escorted tours, independant tours and cruises there still is a demand for a brochure to browse through. Now as all companies are cutting costs on this and offering downloadable brochures sometimes, I still have many clients that do not want to go on the internet and now the travel agent has to incur the cost of printing it out and mailing it to service the client. This is also happening with documents after a trip is booked. Everything is become E docs to save in cost. Though the positive is we save the trees from using to much paper!! Deb More than 1/2 of my clients still like to have a brochure. Not so much hotel brochures but escorted tours, independant tours and cruises there still is a demand for a brochure to browse through.

Now as all companies are cutting costs on this and offering downloadable brochures sometimes, I still have many clients that do not want to go on the internet and now the travel agent has to incur the cost of printing it out and mailing it to service the client.

This is also happening with documents after a trip is booked. Everything is become E docs to save in cost. Though the positive is we save the trees from using to much paper!!

Deb

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