FOUR MAJOR TRAVEL AGENCIES IN NIGERIA CONSOLIDATE

Tectono Business Review gathered that four major travel agencies in Nigeria have announced a consolidation of their business with the aim of improving services in the aviation sector.

The travel agencies include:
• Quantum Travels Limited
• Touchdown Travels Limited
• Finchglow Travels Limited
• Dees Travels Limited

According to the travel agencies, they came together to form the first-ever consolidation in the travel industry. The Chief Executive Officer, Travel Investment Company Limited, the firm midwifing the project, Mrs. Irene Uti-Egbeogu, said the move became essential to enable them to drive innovations and positively change the way business was being done in the sector.

She stated that recently, the sector experienced a wind of change where travel agents no longer enjoyed commissions from airlines. The airlines, she said, needed to find ways to increase revenue and reduce operational costs. Reducing travel commission became a major way of achieving that, she said.

Mrs. Uti-Egbeogu said, “Travel agents are now forced to reconsider their business models to accommodate alternative means of revenue generation which will involve growing their portfolio to include a broad range of products and services. This implies there is a need to sell the value of services and expertise to sustain long term relationship with their customers. For travel agents and travel management companies who already operate a service-fee model, this will mean an expansion of their current service-fee model both in terms of amount charged and the number of services for which these fees are charged. There are different models of consolidation as seen in other markets but the core objective usually remains the same – to use the strength of more than just number but skill to broker better fees in other lines of ancillary revenues.”

According to her, a close look at the industry will reveal that the Nigerian aviation industry is half a decade behind in this development as other countries had already encountered the changes.

She explained that as a result of the challenges, travel agencies had to consider their choices in order not to be heavily reliant on airline commission. In the light of airlines’ zero commission policy in the market, the Nigerian travel market is said to be gradually evolving to mirror other mature travel markets like South Africa, the USA travel markets which mainly run a zero commission model.

From: http://tectono..com/