The past five years have seen AFTA emerge as a major force in the travel industry, both in Australia and overseas.
Many of AFTA's achievements over this period go to the very heart of member interest - not only in maintaining agents as a vital part of the distribution system, but in the impact those achievements have had on the way we go about our daily business as travel agents.
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What has AFTA achieved in the last 5 years?
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Implementation of GST
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A hard fought success with the Federal Government during the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, which won for agents a recognition of their true place in the distribution relationship as well as saving agents many thousands of dollars in administration costs. Not only was AFTA's success measured in terms of how the Federal Government applied the tax to agents, but AFTA itself took on the task of arranging detailed briefing seminars for its Australia-wide membership and the industry to facilitate their implementation of the new tax.
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IATA Passenger Sales Agency Agreement
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AFTA played a pivotal role in the worldwide review of the Passenger Sales Agency Agreement - the core document which underlines the relationship between travel agents and airlines.
Three years of negotiations were aimed at ensuring for the first time that the agent community is an equal partner in the airline-agent relationship and as part of that relationship receives a just remuneration for its efforts on behalf of the airline.
This process, now in its final stages, means that no rule will be able to be imposed on an agent and implemented by airlines and IATA without agent agreement.
It is without doubt, the most significant change in our contractual working environment for many years, and one that impacts on our very existence as agents.
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Prime Minister's Tourism Industry Working Group
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The horrific events at the World Trade Centre and the collapse of Ansett saw an unprecedented assault on our industry's viability. Claims that followed saw Australia's Travel Compensation Fund simply unable to meet the commitments generated by those claims.
AFTA was a key factor in the establishment of the Prime Minister's Tourism Industry Working Group, and initiated and supported a call on the Australian Government to allocate funds to the TCF to assist it in overcoming the problems it faced.
A total of $10 million was allocated - on the basis that State Governments match the offer of $5 million from the Federal Government. AFTA was also active in convincing Governments that substantive travel promotion and incentives were necessary to get the industry moving again as quickly as possible.
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Consumer Compensation Schemes
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AFTA is also a prime mover in pushing for an industry-based scheme to address the question of consumer compensation generally in the event of any travel organisation collapse. AFTA's view is that any such scheme should be industry based and not one imposed simply on travel agents.
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Stronger Industry Relationships
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By establishing an honest and open relationship with the major players in the Australian aviation sector, AFTA has won benefits for agents that are unheard of in other countries. One of the most significant is the recent agreement with Qantas to devise a system whereby agents would be paid for the collection of non-government charges and taxes - themselves part of a plethora of imposts which are threatening the viability of our industry.
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Lobbying of the Government and Australian Banking Sector
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The collapse of Ansett, Canada 3000 and other travel organisations has highlighted the vulnerability of agents when acting as the merchant for a credit card transaction. Banks have been reversing charges on behalf of their cardholders on the basis that the service was not received from the travel agents - with serious financial implications for individual agencies.
AFTA's forthright stance has been to defend agents on the basis that the agent's role is to sell and ticket on behalf of a principal. In keeping with AFTA's determination to insist that, from the agents' viewpoint, the service is complete when the ticket is handed over and it is the role of the principal to provide the product, AFTA has taken the issue to the Prime Minister's office, Tourism Ministers offices, the card companies themselves, the Reserve Bank, the Australian Bankers Association and the ACCC.
These and many other AFTA initiatives are evidence of our determination to ensure that Australia's travel agents are able to meet the challenges which have become a part of our daily business life in recent times.
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