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From | Jac Dobson – SPAA President
The week’s travel news has followed its usual pattern – so far anyway – with a real mixture of frustrating and very positive stories providing the headlines. As always, we highlight a few of the main ones in this edition, and as always it would be great to hear your opinions + ideas.
Voting is well under way for the upcoming SPAA Annual Travel Awards at the end of next month, and you will find more details as you read on. There’s no time like the present, though, so if you have still to vote and you want to take the opportunity right now, while it’s in your mind – here are the links:
Agent Members – Vote here
Associate Members – Vote here
Extreme weather events continue to impact travel and travellers, with Europe and the Med enduring some serious disruption this year. Latest to be hit is river cruising, which has been growing strongly and steadily as a market in the last 15 years and has this week felt the consequences of heavy rainand floo ding – especially around central Europe (Vienna and Budapest, for example).
So far, it looks like major itinerary changes have been, thankfully, limited – and in a positive sense this is giving river cruise operators/agents an opportunity to develop valuable experience + resilience for the future. Evidence suggests this cooperation is working well and affected travellers are generally patient – given that extreme weather is an unknown, unpredictable phenomenon.
Long may that cooperation continue – not least because, as CLIA UK + Ireland MD Andy Harmer has commented recently, “consumer interest in river and expedition cruising has never been higher.”
EES launch tagged for delay – again Amongst the week’s most frustrating, although not surprising, news was about the much-trailed roll-out of EES (EU Entry/Exit System). Yet another delay to the launch date in early November has been suggested – this time at the behest of France, Germany and the Netherlands, which have warned that they will not be ready. In the case of France, their worry is apparently centered on potential congestion in Dover.
This is hardly ‘new news’ and although we would always advocate caution, sooner or later EES will need to be launched and the roll-out will inevitably be a difficult period at European borders. Our UK and EU politicians need to do less ‘grandstanding’ with announcements and more hard, cooperative work behind the scenes to build proper resilience into these huge projects. At the risk of being repetitive, the unintended consequences of failure always end up back in the in-trays of travel professionals and that is increasingly unacceptable.
CONNECTIVITY NEWS
The constant threat to international travel and tourism represented by political scapegoating + cynical revenue generation has been illustrated this week by a proposal from a ‘transport & environment’ think-tank. It claims that a tax on jet fuel could generate up to £5.9billion for the UK Exchequer, on the basis that ‘it is time for the aviation industry to pay its fair share’. The premise this suggests – that aviation is not paying its fair share – is quite evidently flawed, given the huge and growing contribution made by APD Air Passenger Duty over recent years. Tim Alderslade (CEO of Airlines UK) is spot-on when he reminds think-tanks and Government, “The sector is fully committed to net zero emissions by 2050. The UK is in prime position with government and industry working together to lead the transition to a net zero future without hurting passengers.”The worry is that, with one eye on the Treasury’s ‘£22billion black hole’, the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP will be tempted to test the idea of a jet fuel tax to help plug the gap. Needless to say the SPAA, along with our partner organisations, will be making the strongest case against any such move as we continue and increase our engagement with Government.
SPAA EVENTS NEWS
IMPORTANT | Seats for the Networking Lunch and Exhibitor spaces are filling up fast, so if you haven’t already done so, please email and register without delay … don’t miss these excellent events!
Working with our members and associate members, our principals, we’re here to ensure that the voice of the Scottish travel professional is heard.
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