Some agents in Germany are charging SMEs up to €90 to make a transatlantic booking for them, Andrea Zimmermann, leading member of the Verband Deutsches Reisemanagement (VDR), said
Ms Zimmermann, head of travel management for Deutsche Woolworth, the figures came to light at a meeting of SMEs organised by VDR in Munich to discuss the cost of various booking channels.
“There has been no research into this and SMEs do not know how they should make their reservation, which is the cheapest way of doing it,” Ms Zimmermann, who was moderator at the meeting, said.
“Some companies said that it might cost them €80-90 for a transatlantic booking which is much too much. Some compa9ies were also being charged €15-35 for a national booking.
“For a transatlantic booking €25 is too cheap but €100 is a big difference. We think €35-40-45 is okay for this service. €80-90-100 is not normal it is far too much.”
The meeting was called after the VDR formed a committee chaired by Ms Zimmermann to help SMEs manage their travel after Lufthansa stopped paying commission.
She said that most SMEs were sure that making reservations through the net or on an airline booking engine would be more expensive than it they paid a travel agent.
The cost SMEs calculated included the time of “high-powered” employees spending time looking for the best fare. There were also problems if they wanted to change the booking.
“Most said they would like a travel agent as a partner but they must look at the total cost and the services they were giving them.”
* Preliminary research by Dr Fariba Alamdari of the Air Transport Group at Cranfield university, found that TMCs generally charged around $25 to book a $500 air ticket. However while there was no booking fee for a n airline website, the tiem spend making the reservation amounted to about $50 of the employee' time or at a call centre, $75 of his time.
* The time spend telling a TMC fothe required booking cost about $15.