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orking with our members and associate members, our principals, we’re here to ensure that the voice of the Scottish travel professional is heard.
Working with our members and associate members, our principals, we’re here to ensure that the voice of the Scottish travel professional is heard.
We address the issues of a constantly changing travel market place and we’ve never been needed more than now as our industry faces the most severe challenges as a result of the global pandemic and the significantly changed global travel landscape.
Managed by an elected council, with day to day operations led by a team of three – secretariat, treasurer and publisher, the SPAA also has a series of decision making committees including Air and GDS, Political Activities and Leisure which can be found here
Travel is a social business, so we also have a (legendary!) programme of social events from our annual golf day, dinner and travel quiz. Members and associated can find the calendar of future events here and also the (renowned!) gallery of event images from previous shindigs.
2020 saw us celebrate our centenary. The Scottish Passenger Agent’s Association’s beginnings in 1920 were in ocean travel – at a time of fierce competition for sea passages across the world. As agents for these passages sprang up, the SPAA was founded as a professional body for agents who dealt with shipping an immigration. Air travel was a thing of the future at the time we were set up, but the seeds of this were sown on 1924 with the establishing of Imperial Airways for commercial flying.
In 1934, the SPAA broke away from the national group, as a Scottish body which was more in touch with local people, conditions and needs. We were, and we remain, a highly influential organisation which protects our members’ common interests and offers a forum for agents to discuss their challenges, problems and issues.
It wasn’t until the 1940s that commercial flights from Scotland to London began – but they remained the preserve of the wealthy as these were too expensive for anything but the richest to consider. The appetite for flying increased over the next few decades and in the 1960s the emphasis for our agents businesses moved from shipping to airlines.....
From our inception in 1920 to today, the SPAA remains a highly regarded organisation. We celebrate a century of consulting with rail, airline and shipping companies on major issues which affect travel, customers and of course our members.
We’ve negotiated and lobbied on everything from new routes to reductions of agents’ commissions and pay on board schemes. It was the SPAA who first, in 2002, introduced the idea of a £1 levy on all passengers in case of airline failures. We continue to discuss and lobby for this to be introduced.
The landscape for global travel constantly evolves. And, as we entered our centenary celebrations we continued our work on behalf of the Scottish travel trade as we actively lobby both the UK and Scottish governments for a road map out of the 2020/21’s pandemic travel restrictions.
Our ethos has been – and remains – to keep on talking … even if we don’t always agree. Read more
Our mission is to ensure the Scottish travel marketplace is fair for consumers and travel agents. Representing all of Scotland's major travel agents and working with our Associate members we tackle the biggest regulatory, legislative and commercial challenges facing our industry.
" We are the voice of Scotland's travel profession. "