Abta's head of public affairs Stephen D'Alfonso has urged the travel industry to think carefully about which way they will vote in the forthcoming EU referendum.
Speaking at this year's Advantage conference, onboard cruise ship MSC Fantasia, he warned those that believe everything will continue as normal if we vote to leave the EU are "misguided".
D'Alfonso did not give an indication on whether he thought leaving the EU would be good for the industry or not, but said "vote with your heart but make sure your product can cope with it".
He was speaking during a session around the effects that political and economic changes will have on the travel sector and was joined on stage by travel lawyer Jo Kolatsis, who is a partner at law firm Hill Dickinson.
"I think [Brexit] is a dangerous option," said Kolatsis. "People don't realise how much we get from Europe. There could be impacts on security and terrorism and we will be on the outside looking in.
"So do I think leaving will be better? I don't think so," she added.
Managing content
The conference also heard from Ken McLeod, Advantage Travel Partnership's corporate director, who spoke about the need to manage content better and how that's becoming increasingly "complicated".
"I don't think content is going to get easier in terms of being able to manage it," said McLeod. "Every supplier is trying to personalise their business to the individual traveller, not the corporate, not the TMC, but the individual travellers themselves and once we've got that in our head and understand that philosophy then we can move forward," said McLeod.
McLeod was joined by managing director of Aria Management, Colin Goldney, who urged TMCs to promote the value they offer to the managed travel sector.
"I think TMCs do a much better job in aiding compliance than they get credit for, but they need to sell themselves better," said Goldney. "TMCs need to position themselves as 'travel enablers', not gatekeepers or controllers."