Comments on: A consumer’s view of the collapse of Goldtrail http://www.travel-rants.com/2010/07/23/consumers-view-collapse-goldtrail/ Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:52:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Lee Harrison http://www.travel-rants.com/2010/07/23/consumers-view-collapse-goldtrail/#comment-168258 Lee Harrison Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:38:08 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=6398#comment-168258 Darren, I can only re-iterate what Nick has said above and he covers most of the points you have raised and much more could be added. You have stated in this article that you do not know how the travel industry works and yet you reply to Consumers with a Blog entitled Travel rants? Many Companies have avoided failure by last minute cash Injections, so yes bookings will happen, unfortunatly there has to be a time When a Plug is pulled and the doors have to close. We Chose not to sell Goldtrail because We knew that the type of accommodation at the prices they sold at just didn't add up, and that Clients really need to think before booking, and Say Hang on this just looks too good to be true. If I buy a return same day rail ticket from Great Malvern to London, i won't get much change from £100.00 , so What should I expect from an All Inclusive Holiday advertised at 5 Sun costing £209.00? When asked by clients about these holidays, we have always been honest and said If you went with the expectation of it being 1 Sun , then at that price If it was better, you wouldn't have anything to Complain about. Unfortunatly in this day and age, Certain clients will only buy on price and want to pay less and less or demand bigger Discounts. When this happens something has to give, and it will always be that Standards drop and Quality gets thrown out of the Window. When a Hotelier is being payed £3 a night, How can he be expected to replace furniture, Refurbish bathrooms, replace Old Electrics and be Expected to provide an all-inclusive Service including Beer and Wine all day long. " ALL TALK NO ACTION" To be honest Darren, Here you are talking a load of rubbish! I have stated here before, If you are booking with a reputable Travel agency, get to know them, check their credentials and don't abuse their knowledge and wisdom, then that Travel agent will offer a holiday that is sold to the Customer because it is right for the customer, not right to the Travel Agency because of commercial deals. Unfortunatly there is no Travel Agent in the Country that can predict if an operator is struggling financialy, but yes we can make our own commercial decicions based on Industry news, and as Nick has stated, Gossip and heresay can be dangerous things.The Important Point here Darren is that if you have booked with your LOCAL TRAVEL AGENT and have somebody you can speak to face to face, then if a Tour Operator has collapsed, it will be the Travel agent who will Work 18 hours of the day or more and Sort everything out, Paperwork, replacement Holidays etc, so the Client doesn't have the worry. "TRAVEL AGENTS ATTITUDE TO NON PACKAGE HOLIDAYS" You are entitled to your point of View Darren, and I am extremely disheartened by your comments. As the Writer of this Blog, I Would be expecting you to be pointing your readers in the Right Direction and that means having 100% protection. You are right in your comment that All should be financially protected no matter what they have booked, but as you well know THIS IS NOT THE CASE, AS YET! The Laws do need changing and I have campaigned for more than 16 years In TTG, Travel Weekly and elsewhere about Industry standards, Discounting and the need for Travel protection.If Clients book an un-protected holiday, having been told of the Circumstances or Book without reading the small print and understanding the terms and conditions, do not take out Insurance when advised to and then Break a Leg, you are asking me to Sympathise with them? A Good Travel Agency covers all of these points to avoid the stories that appear from your guests Rants Perhaps your next article should be Highlighting to Clients the Pitfalls of NOT HAVING PROTECTION and stop campaigning about Travel Agents who generally do a good Job(Ash cloud springs to mind) And your Last comment, what are the lessons that need to be learnt from the collapse of Goldtrail well as above Speak to a Local Agent Face to Face, Use them and not abuse them, be honest with them about what you really want to get out of your holiday, be realistic about What the True cost of a holiday should be, and If the Price looks too good to be true, then it usually is ! Darren, I can only re-iterate what Nick has said above and he covers most of the points you have raised and much more could be added.
You have stated in this article that you do not know how the travel industry works and yet you reply to Consumers with a Blog entitled Travel rants?
Many Companies have avoided failure by last minute cash Injections, so yes bookings will happen, unfortunatly there has to be a time When a Plug is pulled and the doors have to close. We Chose not to sell Goldtrail because We knew that the type of accommodation at the prices they sold at just didn’t add up, and that Clients really need to think before booking, and Say Hang on this just looks too good to be true.
If I buy a return same day rail ticket from Great Malvern to London, i won’t get much change from £100.00 , so What should I expect from an All Inclusive Holiday advertised at 5 Sun costing £209.00? When asked by clients about these holidays, we have always been honest and said If you went with the expectation of it being 1 Sun , then at that price If it was better, you wouldn’t have anything to Complain about.
Unfortunatly in this day and age, Certain clients will only buy on price and want to pay less and less or demand bigger Discounts. When this happens something has to give, and it will always be that Standards drop and Quality gets thrown out of the Window.
When a Hotelier is being payed £3 a night, How can he be expected to replace furniture, Refurbish bathrooms, replace Old Electrics and be Expected to provide an all-inclusive Service including Beer and Wine all day long.
” ALL TALK NO ACTION”
To be honest Darren, Here you are talking a load of rubbish!
I have stated here before, If you are booking with a reputable Travel agency, get to know them, check their credentials and don’t abuse their knowledge and wisdom, then that Travel agent will offer a holiday that is sold to the Customer because it is right for the customer, not right to the Travel Agency because of commercial deals. Unfortunatly there is no Travel Agent in the Country that can predict if an operator is struggling financialy, but yes we can make our own commercial decicions based on Industry news, and as Nick has stated, Gossip and heresay can be dangerous things.The Important Point here Darren is that if you have booked with your LOCAL TRAVEL AGENT and have somebody you can speak to face to face, then if a Tour Operator has collapsed, it will be the Travel agent who will Work 18 hours of the day or more and Sort everything out, Paperwork, replacement Holidays etc, so the Client doesn’t have the worry.
“TRAVEL AGENTS ATTITUDE TO NON PACKAGE HOLIDAYS”
You are entitled to your point of View Darren, and I am extremely disheartened by your comments. As the Writer of this Blog, I Would be expecting you to be pointing your readers in the Right Direction and that means having 100% protection. You are right in your comment that All should be financially protected no matter what they have booked, but as you well know THIS IS NOT THE CASE, AS YET!
The Laws do need changing and I have campaigned for more than 16 years In TTG, Travel Weekly and elsewhere about Industry standards, Discounting and the need for Travel protection.If Clients book an un-protected holiday, having been told of the Circumstances or Book without reading the small print and understanding the terms and conditions, do not take out Insurance when advised to and then Break a Leg, you are asking me to Sympathise with them? A Good Travel Agency covers all of these points to avoid the stories that appear from your guests Rants
Perhaps your next article should be Highlighting to Clients the Pitfalls of NOT HAVING PROTECTION and stop campaigning about Travel Agents who generally do a good Job(Ash cloud springs to mind)
And your Last comment, what are the lessons that need to be learnt from the collapse of Goldtrail well as above Speak to a Local Agent Face to Face, Use them and not abuse them, be honest with them about what you really want to get out of your holiday, be realistic about What the True cost of a holiday should be, and If the Price looks too good to be true, then it usually is !

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]]> By: Nick http://www.travel-rants.com/2010/07/23/consumers-view-collapse-goldtrail/#comment-168164 Nick Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:44:59 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=6398#comment-168164 Darren The industry greeted this failure with shock, the whole industry not just part. No one expect Gold trail to fail when it did. To quote the administrator "normally we ask why did you not go into administration earlier, in this case we asking why did you go into administration so soon." All bonded travel company's are monitored and if the figures show a problem investigated but in Goldtrails case 2 monitoring bodies did not see any warning signs. No travel agent wants to sell a company that is going bust we loose a massive amount of money when it happens. So expensive that in some cases we will have to book 10 new holidays just to cover the cost of 1 failed one. I have already commented that rumors can bring down a company without it being in trouble in the first place and what damage rumors did to a very profitable company with a secure future. This is another reason why you are not allowed to say you think a company's in trouble. For the record I had no idea Goldtrail was in trouble at the time it failed. The industry knows why some agents stopped selling Goldtrail. Same reason we do not sell some other operators. 1. Poor Customer Service or 2. Bad commercial deals or 3. A internal problem with the Operator. So Does that mean every tour operator that some agency's do not sell is bad... of course not... otherwise your saying Expedia or Thomas Cook is bad, yes both sell though travel agents and yet some agents do not deal with them. Yet both are pretty normal companies. So why did agents sell them? Because customers demand cheap holidays and they know if they did not sell them customers would buy them else where. You right no matter how you book you should be protected. But then this is what Travel Agents and Tour Operators and the Government’s Advisors have been saying for 15 years. So what happened... Nothing... Companies go down and Travel Agents and Tour Operators continue to loose money trying to do the right thing. Rules mean that selling a protected package is more expensive so customers’ book unprotected packages even when it explained to them clearly and they understand what that means ... "Because it will never happen to me". When it does we then get the fall out from the company that goes bust and often the blame. How many people will go in to any other business and shout and swear at them because another company went bust. Did Northern Rock customers go into Lloyds or Barclays and shout in their branches demanding money? Do we feel the situation is unfair and messed up? YES It is not good customer service but is pure frustration that caused an out burst, the travel agent that made that comment is working hard to try and help people that have been affected. According to the government department responsible for this... This creates and unfair and expensive situation that is bad for company's that follow the rules and in the short and long term bad for the consumer. So the government own department thinks’ the rules are wrong. The majority of the Industry thinks the rules are wrong and the Minister answers the travel trade with. “I am not interested in outbound tourism”. So nothing changes. Darren

The industry greeted this failure with shock, the whole industry not just part. No one expect Gold trail to fail when it did. To quote the administrator “normally we ask why did you not go into administration earlier, in this case we asking why did you go into administration so soon.” All bonded travel company’s are monitored and if the figures show a problem investigated but in Goldtrails case 2 monitoring bodies did not see any warning signs.

No travel agent wants to sell a company that is going bust we loose a massive amount of money when it happens. So expensive that in some cases we will have to book 10 new holidays just to cover the cost of 1 failed one.

I have already commented that rumors can bring down a company without it being in trouble in the first place and what damage rumors did to a very profitable company with a secure future. This is another reason why you are not allowed to say you think a company’s in trouble. For the record I had no idea Goldtrail was in trouble at the time it failed.

The industry knows why some agents stopped selling Goldtrail. Same reason we do not sell some other operators. 1. Poor Customer Service or 2. Bad commercial deals or 3. A internal problem with the Operator. So Does that mean every tour operator that some agency’s do not sell is bad… of course not… otherwise your saying Expedia or Thomas Cook is bad, yes both sell though travel agents and yet some agents do not deal with them. Yet both are pretty normal companies.

So why did agents sell them? Because customers demand cheap holidays and they know if they did not sell them customers would buy them else where.

You right no matter how you book you should be protected. But then this is what Travel Agents and Tour Operators and the Government’s Advisors have been saying for 15 years. So what happened… Nothing… Companies go down and Travel Agents and Tour Operators continue to loose money trying to do the right thing.

Rules mean that selling a protected package is more expensive so customers’ book unprotected packages even when it explained to them clearly and they understand what that means … “Because it will never happen to me”. When it does we then get the fall out from the company that goes bust and often the blame. How many people will go in to any other business and shout and swear at them because another company went bust. Did Northern Rock customers go into Lloyds or Barclays and shout in their branches demanding money?

Do we feel the situation is unfair and messed up? YES

It is not good customer service but is pure frustration that caused an out burst, the travel agent that made that comment is working hard to try and help people that have been affected.

According to the government department responsible for this… This creates and unfair and expensive situation that is bad for company’s that follow the rules and in the short and long term bad for the consumer. So the government own department thinks’ the rules are wrong. The majority of the Industry thinks the rules are wrong and the Minister answers the travel trade with. “I am not interested in outbound tourism”. So nothing changes.

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