TravelBrands Chief Hails TICO Changes and Praises Agent Partners

The head of TravelBrands is hailing industry changes made by the Travel Industry Council of Ontario in response to the pain imposed by the COVID-19 crisis.

Speaking with TravelPulse Canada Editor in Chief John Kirk as part of TravelPulse Canada’s ongoing, 1 on 1 Facebook live chat series, Travel Brands President and CEO Frank DeMarinis said the changes made by the Ontario government regarding the use of travel vouchers was “absolutely necessary.”

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“Richard Smart (who will be the subject of our Thursday Facebook live chat) over at TICO has done an amazing job … getting the legislature to impose a revision to the Travel Industry Act that really hasn’t been updated in a very long time. The fact that now future travel vouchers are deemed to be covered under TICO is important,” and it allows vouchers to be issued with confidence for travel in the next 24 months.

COVID-19 and the resulting, often dizzying changes, have made things particularly tricky for TravelBrands, a company that deals with 90 airlines, 20 cruise lines and 600,000 hotel rooms because they all have different terms and conditions and operate in wildly different jurisidctions, DeMarinis pointed out.

The fact that the Ontario government will also protect consumer travel vouchers is a big step, he said, as that has been a grey area in the legislation.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in today’s day and age where we’re dealing with this crisis,” he told TravelPulse Canada. “With all our suppliers we’re getting multiple updates on a daily basis, and it’s causing a lot of havoc in the travel industry, especially for the customer. But I can assure you, and I can assure all travel agents out there, that every single Canadian airline and every single Canadian tour operator is trying to do the right thing here.

“We will, and this is what I can say on behalf of TravelBrands, if a cruise line allows a cancellation and a refund, we will issue that refund,” DeMarinis said. “And we will do that with every supplier. If a supplier is issuing refunds, we will do the same. But if a supplier is only issuing a future travel voucher, we have to comply with that supplier.”

DeMarinis said he’s extremely grateful to TravelBrands team members.

“We’re a very close-knit family. I can’t express my sincere gratitude enough to every single employee we have in the family. As difficult as it is, everyone understands the crisis we’re in.”

“We’ve had to lay off 50% of our staff. There’s no revenue coming in; we’re maybe at five to seven per cent of what we were just several weeks ago.”

The swiftness with which COVID-19 has descended on the industry, and the lightning speed at which damage has been done, simply could not have been anticipated.

“If someone asked me six months ago, ‘What if I told you that you need to prepare yourself and get ready, because in this time you’re going to be cut off from revenue, and you’re going to be shutting down and you’re not going to have the ability to make a sale,’ I would’ve said, 'What are you smoking?'”

“This is new to all of us,” he said. “Sometimes we have to have a deeper understanding of what that means because we truly are in this together. It’s underlining our strength and what we love to do as a community. We love to sell travel, we love the tourism industry, we love to sell that vacation package, and we love putting smiles on people’s faces. But now that we’re in a time of crisis, we also need to be there for not only just the staff but also for customer, and do what’s right for the travel agents as well.”

Asked about anger in the marketplace, DeMarinis said emotions tend to run high in times of a crisis.

“Sometimes it causes a little bit of fear, a little bit of panic, and it causes a lot of anger. I was a travel agent for a very long time; I understand the frustration and anger they’re going through on the front line right now. My sister is a travel agent for Red Tag, and one customer had her in tears.

“This is the anger we’re dealing with. But there’s a lot of goodness coming out of this well. The travel agents have remained professional and they’re doing everything they possibly can to accommodate their clients.”

Asked about a recovery, DeMarinis said he doesn’t have a crystal ball.

“But I think we need to be realistic” and understand the global effect of the current crisis.

“We’re not focussed on today, we’re focussed on how we’re going to come out,” he said. “We’ve set up webinars in April to engage agents not only to get better experience on product knowledge we’re going to be setting out, but for some of the new tools and functionalities we’ve been working on. Some of those we’re working on are self-servicing tools that will help the travel agents continue to work with us in a more effective and efficient way.”

“We’re going to weather the storm, “ DeMarinis concluded “We’re going to weather it together.”

THURSDAY: Check our Facebook page for a 1 on 1 live chat with Richard Smart, President and CEO of TICO, at 12:30 p.m. EST