Travel Agents Drink Plenty Of Tea, Research

Children see travel agencies mainly as boring places to visit where staff are friendly and helpful but spend a lot of time on the phone and drinking lots of tea.

These were some of the amusing but also insightful findings of research carried out on behalf of independent agency consortium Advantage.

Unveiled in a session at this year's Advantage conference, agents were shown video clips of a discussion with a dozen well-travelled 12 to 14-year-olds at a school in Chelmsford.

The children told researchers their parents rarely used travel agents to book their travel, only if they were 'bigger' holidays.

Instead, they booked hotels and flights directly on the internet.

When asked about their experiences of going into a travel agency, the children said the 'people were very nice' but they 'just look at the computer for a long time', 'wait on the telephone' and 'drink a lot of tea'.

But a few said agents were good at getting discounts and had changed their holiday to a better one.

One child said travel agencies were usually 'empty' and another said his parents just sat there while 'I was just listening, I did nothing'.

One girl said: "We don't have time to go to a travel agent and we can do it in about 10 minutes while watching TV."

Most of the children recognised the ATOL logo, saying they had seen it on websites or at the end of television adverts.

But only one understood the meaning of it, saying: "If the company goes broke, you can get your money back."

Advantage business development director Colin O'Neill said the children's comments should inspire members to consider how to change these perceptions and attract their future customers.

"Your shop environment is very important and it's important to ask if your outlet is welcoming and is eye catching, colourful and interesting enough to catch their eye and entice young people in," he said.

Agents were asked to consider having kids corners in their stores, where children could colour in pictures of travel destinations or tourist landmarks.

Agents could even run colouring competitions to engage younger customers and their parents.

"It's not about spending lots and lots of money, because in retail travel there aren't huge margins, but it's about being creative," said O'Neill.