In the last few years, January holiday sales advertisements have ended with acronyms. In light of high-profile insolvencies and major incidents, the leisure travel industry is keen to build trust with potential holidaymakers and let consumers know that booking with them means their money is protected if something goes wrong. In the UK it means ATOL (Air Travel Organiser's Licence) protection and ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) are now often mentioned or appear.
It's a more careful selection process when a company chooses a business travel agent/management company. So do endorsements or memberships matter so much?
Apparently so. Research conducted by Censuswide found 84% of 508 managers think it is important that their TMC is an ABTA member — up from 82% last year. This raised to 91% among companies with a turnover of £50-99.9 million and 92% of smaller business with 50-99 employees agreed. Thirty seven of the 50 largest TMCs in the UK are a member and another 182 have business travel as a principal business.
That's largely because association membership is synonymous with a standard or level of service. But that is not always the case. In accommodation there are several members of the ASAP (Association of Serviced Apartment Providers) but not all are accredited under its quality scheme — although CEO James Foice says it is moving towards representing accredited members only. "The product must be safe and credible; travellers have to know what they are arriving at. It's the assurance that the traveller is getting what they book," he explained at the ASAP conference in December.
Jon Bolger, ex-Capita group travel procurement director turned consultant, agrees that accreditation "brings companies up" to a standard in an industry where it can be "pot luck as to what you get". "Quality accreditation means suppliers can go into travel policies and will make sourcing easier," he added at the same ASAP event.
Back to the ABTA survey, which also observed that 86% of business owners and 87% of directors think the membership is important. Management cares. A buyer at the Business Travel iQ/Business Travel Show advisory board believes there is internal 'kudos' that comes with being a hosted buyer at the show, for example.
It's worth checking what they stand for, and why not everyone is a member, but some involvement or logos may be more powerful than you think.