6TTAND's Friisdahl talks service fees

“Why would a client value our work if we don’t?”: TTAND’s Friisdahl talks about the push for service fees

by Kathryn Folliott

TORONTO — A couple of stats illustrate just how much travel advisors with The Travel Agent Next Door have embraced charging service fees - and communicating the worth of their services to clients - in the wake of the pandemic.

One set of numbers is pre-COVD, and the other is from just a couple of months ago.

As company founder Flemming Friisdahl tells Travelweek: “Pre-COVID, in February 2019, we had about $1,000 in service fees on $15 million in sales. In February 2021, service fees were up to between $7,000 and $8,000, with $1 million in sales. So that’s more than 7x the amount of service fees, on significantly less business.”

TTAND has built a service fee capability into its system and now offers its agents the ability to add fees under a variety of different names such as a Planning Fee, Consultation Fee, Professional Services Fee – and also there’s a Change Fee and Cancellation Fee. The agent has the ability to choose the name they want and the amount charged, in either Canadian or U.S. funds.

TTAND is encouraging its members to learn more about service fees with the new training course available on its TTAND University learning platform. The course, which Friisdahl says takes less than two hours to complete, has gone over extremely well with TTAND advisors.

TTAND has also made a series of videos available to all agents - not just TTAND agents - interested in learning more about types of service fees and service fee strategies.

Making the videos available free to all agents was an unorthodox approach, but Friisdahl believes that fees will become commonplace the more agents charge them.

Most agents who don’t yet charge fees worry that alerting their clients to a fee structure will drive them away. If the majority of agents charge fees, the chances of that happening are far less, he says.

In normal times, adds Friisdahl, “there’s plenty of business for everyone. Other travel agencies aren’t our competition. Our competition is OTAs and suppliers going direct.” “MAKE SURE YOU GET COMPENSATED FOR YOUR HARD WORK”

Travel agents have always known their worth, but for some, it’s taken a pandemic - and months and months of exhausting work on their clients’ behalf, almost always for free - for many agents to realize that charging a service fee is the right choice for them and their business.

The need for income beyond supplier commission was brought into stark relief over the past 13 months. While Air Canada’s and ACV’s commitment to protect agent commission, as announced as part of Air Canada’s financial assistance package from the federal government on April 12, was welcome news, agents still face major shortfalls if Canada’s other airlines don’t follow suit. And while agents have lauded cruise lines for protecting commission in the wake of the pandemic and all the cancellations, the same can’t be said for every supplier.

Fees help no matter what happens, says Friisdahl. “Even if clients cancel, or suppliers cancel, agents are still charging the fee,” he says. “The reality is, right now, most agents are living on the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB). That’s no way to live. Nobody wants to take government handouts.”

Friisdahl adds “With this pandemic it has shown agents how vulnerable they can be if we have to refund files so we have to be sure if this happens again we are better protected.”

TTAND’s service fee capability, offering agents the flexibility to call their fee a Planning Fee, Consultation Fee, Professional Services Fee or what have you, allows agents to tailor their fee schedule to best suit their business. “Each of the agents are their own business owners” and will do what’s right for them, says Friisdahl.

Many agents charge a service fee that gets rebated back to the client if the client books a trip. While some retailers say this can devalue an agent’s work, Friisdahl says he’s all in favour of anything that cuts down on window shoppers. “Even if that’s the way you charge a service fee, it still eliminates the customers you don’t want. That may sound wrong but you don’t necessarily want every customer. It secures income and eliminates tire-kickers.”

Friisdahl says he expects about 80% of TTAND agents will charge fees in the coming months, compared with 20% pre-pandemic. “It will take a while to ramp it up,” he says.

In Travelweek’s February 2021 series on service fees, Friisdahl summed up his thoughts on service fees in one sentence: “As a professional travel agent, make sure you get compensated for the hard work and caring you do for your clients.”

He also had a message for any clients on the fence about doing business with a travel agent who charges service fees: “Like everything in life, you get what you pay for, and if you want a professional travel agent to make your dream vacation come true, down to the smallest detail, expect that they will charge a fee for that service.”

Here’s another way to put it, he says: “Why would a client value our work if we don’t?”

TTAND President and founder, Flemming Friisdahl

The Vancouver Airport Authority and WestJet have released study findings showing that rapid antigen testing is an effective, acceptable and cost-efficient method for screening travellers and contributes to safer and healthier air travel. Participant feedback was “resoundingly positive,” say the project partners, with many saying the procedure was efficient, more comfortable than expected and instilled confidence about the safety of their travels.

POLICIES

Canada’s flight ban from India and Pakistan, which took effect April 22, will be in place for at least 30 days. The ban applies to all passenger and commercial flights into Canada from India and Pakistan. Asked about flights from Brazil, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said there are currently no flights from Brazil. “But we will not hesitate to ban flights from other countries,” he said. “Border restrictions can change at any time. You can be stuck in another country.”

Ontario is asking for mandatory pre-departure PCR testing for all domestic air travellers entering the province, an extension to current rules for international passengers seeking entry into Canada. Ontario has already closed its Quebec and Manitoba boundaries to non-essential travel, however there are currently no measures in place to protect provinces from the spread of COVID-19 variants through interprovincial air travel, an area of federal responsibility. Last week Premier Ford and several other premiers urged the federal government to strengthen measures at the Canada-U.S. land border and against inter-provincial travel.

Reports coming out of the UK suggest that UK residents could have a vaccination passport system in place by the time international travel is scheduled to start reopening there on May 17. The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has reportedly indicted that passports “will of course be a part of international travel.” The EU is working on its Digital Green Pass as a means to help reopen travel within the EU this summer. Here in Canada the federal government has indicated it has agreed with its G7 counterparts, which include the UK and the U.S., to coordinate and collaborate on vaccination passports for international travel.

DESTINATIONS

UNWTO and IATA have teamed up to launch a brand new destination tracker that will allow governments to provide information about in-country requirements and travel measures. Available free of charge on both UNWTO’s and IATA’s websites, the online tool is designed to boost traveller confidence and accelerate the recovery of the tourism sector. The tool offers: COVID-19 indicators including infection rates, positivity rates and vaccination rollout by destination/ country; air travel regulations including test and quarantine requirements, provided by IATA’s Timatic solution; and destination measures including general health and safety requirements such as use of masks, transit through a country, curfew or regulations related to restaurants and attractions, provided by national tourism organizations.

Tahiti

The Islands of Tahiti has announced that it will be reopening to tourism starting May 1. The decision to reopen came as a result of low COVID-19 cases and ramped up vaccination efforts. The Islands of Tahiti will put in place entry protocols at its borders using virological testing, serological testing, vaccine and ETIS (Electronic Travel Information System). The WTTC has awarded French Polynesia with its Safe Travels stamp, the world’s first global health and safety label for travel and tourism.