Why use a travel agent when you can book it yourself?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday January 16, 2014

Do you need a flight anywhere in the world? From Lagos to Vladivostok? A hotel on Copacabana beach? An hour exploring the internet will find you dozens of choices. So how can a travel agent survive in this DIY world? Aren't they all going to wither on the branches and fall away?

But wait a minute, some travel agents have never done better business. They operate flat chat. So what's their secret of survival in our changing business world?

I asked my long-time friend Anne Rogers how she did it. For three decades she has weathered the storms of the internet flood, the changes in business in her Wings Away Travel Agency in Essendon. She is still here, in fact the business is healthier than ever, even as scores of other agents disappear from the high streets. What does she know about the internet - or her business?

"The Internet will only take business from you if you are not adding value to the product you supply," she says emphatically. "If you just want a flight to London you can do it yourself," she's the first to tell the one-stop customer how to do it; in fact her agency handles very few domestic bookings - with all the bargains advertised there is no point, and very little profit.

No, the business walks in as soon as things start to get difficult. "They come to us because to organise a multi-faceted trip on the internet - well you wouldn't live long enough to get it right," she smiles. By the time you've coordinated the best fares, travel times, hotels, side trips, car hire - you're wrestling an octopus.

Years ago in London I spent a day on the phone trying to change the return flight to Australia, to no avail. Then in desperation I called my Melbourne agent and one of Anne's girls took up the battle. Lord knows what time it was around the world, but in an hour she had rung me back with the problem fixed.

This is a major lesson from the internet. Business is not just turning out the goods and punching the till. We have to offer our customers what they can't do by themselves, much of which comes from our length of practice and experience.

Cruising is growing massively these days. It has boomed as a holiday choice, and in turn the ships have become floating palaces. No more deck quoits and watching the gulls. Each ship has a dozen different restaurants, music and variety shows, gourmet food and fine wines.

The escorted tours are dazzling - just from Australia you can sail with Marina Prior, Elaine Paige, John Waters, even have a Countdown cruise with Molly Meldrum and Daryl Braithwaite. Would you prefer the tropical moonlight rockin with Jimmy Barnes or serenaded by hunky baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes?

Anne - like the other dedicated travel agents - spends a lot of her year sampling their products. (I know it's a hard job but somebody has to do it...)

It means an agent can give you up to date advice whether from the Rockies or Himalayas, the Amazon or Siberia, African game parks or Antarctica.

And boy, aren't people getting adventurous these days? Cruising starts in the 40s, the "junior retirees", Anne calls them. The advantage of a cruise ship is that even the slow and creaky don't have to be house-bound.

"I know they make a lot of jokes about zimmer frames and wheel chairs on the ships, but a cruise makes these exotic destinations available to them." And Anne's mission is to bring the exotic to all.

We're the natives of the great Chinese cargo cult

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday January 9, 2014


Every new year I revisit the Great Australian Cargo Cult. Like the natives of post-war New Guinea we Australians await the arrival of cargo planes full of consumer goods - refrigerators, cars, shoes, clothes, cooking pots - all sent by some far-away god because we are the lucky ones.

Without great effort we receive it all and demand more. And if the flow at all falters, we cut down our leaders and find more promising ones. We want our goods and we'll do as little as possible for them.

Well this year I’m looking at the cult from the giving side. I’m writing in Yunnan, south-western China, having crossed the great Middle Kingdom that donates to our welfare. What a land! A hive of over a billion people all working feverishly. Day and night fresh skyscrapers and factories are being built. In the east, new subways are tunnelling under Shanghai and the airport boasts a 430 kph maglev magnetic train.

There are 160 cities in China with over one million population and looking at the one I visited, Kunming, these ain't populated by hungry rice planters. The cityscape is a forest of skyscrapers; freeways and rail are connecting with Bangkok, Hanoi, Mandalay and Chittagong. It's a huge manufacturing region most Australians don't even know about.

They are quite happy to keep supplying our cargo goods, and so long as we supply all the raw materials they demand and keep signing the IOUs, we are a convenient quarry. But if you look at Chinese history, they do expect strict compliance from their vassals - we pay for those toasters by doing what we’re told.

From what I saw of Kunming, they were not waiting for cargo cults. They were creating their own future. They have revived their ancient silk and tea road trading. They have huge iron and steel industries, factories, universities, and are expanding their tourism.

China is a big wide world with an even bigger one outside it. I'm afraid Australia does not even register within these circles most days, they certainly don't feel they owe us anything. Not even a bamboo plane.

Just Kunming district has five million people full of determination to prosper. There are the usual equivalents to our state and federal demands and tussles, but ultimately there is a willingness to invest and grow, both from government and private sectors.

It doesn't surprise me to see that China now has more industrial researchers than Europe, education is a national focus. The recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report put Shanghai at No 1 in mathematics - and Australia at No 19. We're also 16 in science and 14 in reading. Yes, Shanghai is No 1 both times.

At this rate we'll have difficulty keeping tally of our bales of straw as we work on our Cargo Cult airport. It certainly won't take us into the high-powered literacy and scientific advancement we will need to keep up with even one small Chinese province.

Allow me a final boast. My five-years old Chinese granddaughter spent two months attending a Queensland school this year. Bi-lingual, she quickly adapted with the local kids. And immediately, she was the best reader in the class. In English.

I know I've said it many times over the past nine years, but push aside the straw and bamboo and let's build a real future for this country. And have a wonderful, prosperous New Year.