ABTA seemingly not reliable in consumer saftey matter

ABTA is short for Association of British Travel Agents, a trade organization of British travel agents, founded in 1950 and developed into a Company Limited by Guarantee on June the 14th 1955. At the present time ABTA’s 1039 tour operator and 6050 travel agency offices deal with the sale of some 85% of UK’s sold holydays.

The main reason for ABTA’s existence is, as commonly expressed by its representatives, the promotion of all the travel agents interests and to carry out all the activities that are likely to promote the members or the entire association’s prestige. Of course the agency doesn’t assume the task of interfering in any situation that may result from its members or associate’s actions, such as discounting by travel agents, brochure relaunches by tour operators, overcapacity, direct selling, proliferation of travel agencies, advertisements comparing a Member favorably on to other members and so forth.

The idea is that the association is not responsible for every agent’s deeds; therefore it can’t be made guilty for any fraud its members may conduct. The reason behind this point of view is that ABTA is unable to control or be aware of every isolated agent’s intentions. Frequently, the wrongdoer’s acts have implications that surpass the area of ABTA’s activity. For example, one may sell a costumer a holyday that does not exist so to favor the plans of another institution that is in dispute with ABTA or it may be that the result of his action involves another agency as well.

Recently, the famed and respected ABTA has been the subject of critics and accusations regarding the reality of the blanket consumer protection it has since the beginning engaged on ensuring. The office of Fair Trading’s Consumer Code has withdrawn its license as the result of the accusation that it can not offer proper protection to its costumers. In fact, the ABTA had retreated its guarantee on consumer protection on September 1st and it has been made guilty with concealing this fact to its clients.

The ABTA officials in turn claim that this way of viewing the situation is incorrect, since the agency still ensures protection for the buyers whose booking has been made, thus making people work with ABTA officials in full legal terms. Only the unbooked clients fall out of the sphere of protection. Thus adequate agent-client relationships are being encouraged. An ABTA spokesman explained that it is unnatural for the company to redress the upset clients for these payments would disorganize financial plans. ABTA continues to encourage clients to pay the authorized suppliers of the agency and ask them for booking at each contract. Those agents that do not offer a booking are much more susceptible of fraud. Thus it would be a lot easier for the authorities to track down illegal operators. The client’s sense of reality and habits must be improved; they must be very aware of the formalities so as to be alerted when any agent doesn’t accomplish his full tasks.

The Travel Counselors David Speakman deemed ABTA’s silence towards their costumers relating to the end of the blanket costumer protection as unacceptable. He points out to the vast number of clients cheated by unworthy agents who find themselves in the impossibility to get paid back. Yet the Freedom Travel Agents Consortium general manager Trevor Davis responds that the ABTA agents offer protection if the contracts are carried out properly. The agents which applied for the license to show the code logo will be asked not to use it.

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