End
of the Line for London’s Visitor Travelcard
--- see the end of this article for our STOP PRESS! ---
For many years Transport for London (TfL) has had a scheme that
enables visitors to London to purchase a Visitor Travelcard (VTC)
for use on the buses and the undergound, when booking their holiday,
or business trip, to London. This successful scheme has been copied
and produced sustained sales growth year on year in many major
European Capital cities.
In simple terms, agents for each country were appointed to sell
VTC’s and other designated tickets to individuals or groups
in return for a commission – fairly standard procedure – and
whilst there was no major saving to visitors who pre-purchased
the VTC, the convenience and guidance on travel around London,
from arrival at the airport, certainly outweighed a modest surcharge.
Depending on timescales, agents could provide tickets or redemption
vouchers for exchange at key TfL Tourist Information Centres. For
the vast majority of sales, tickets would be provided.
Supported
by informative material from TfL, such as tube maps, discount
coupons and free London guides this made an attractive offering
for agents
and encouraged them to promote London as a destination. In addition
many Visitors arrived in the Capital fully informed and ticketed,
having also paid in local currency and been advised in their
own language. With over a million ticket sales each year this
is a
substantial contribution. But that’s about to change! Not
everyone realises this or is aware of the effect on visitors and
the impact on London.
Despite its proven success for driving visitors
to those European cities that have adopted the system, TfL have
decided to ‘reorganise’ the Visitor Travelcard for
London. Importantly as yet, no definitive or worthwhile structure
has been put in place to guide agents and individuals into 2005
and beyond.
Even worse, TfL also intend to drastically reduce their
involvement and co-operation with the Travel Trade, an influential
body who have supported TfL for many years. The lead time for next
year on print and brochure production alone is now radiating off
the calendars of most Tour Operators who are wrapping up plans
for 2005 – they need to know the detail and need to know
soon. Added to which, the current TfL proposal suggest 10% commission
to agents ‘across the board’ (whether they sell 5 tickets
or 5,000 tickets a year), and no support material.
To illustrate
the negative impact this will have let’s look at the two
major visitor categories and how they are affected.
Conference & Group
Tickets
In future agents will need to: a) pay in advance (and manage
exchange rates), b) know exact numbers well in advance, c) wait
up to 14 days to receive the tickets, and d) in the event that
flights or details change they will pay a penalty for exchange.
Does that encourage visitors?
Independent Visitors
In future those
visitors booking by themselves (and not all countries are as internet
savvy as the UK) will need to track down the TfL website and work
through the maze of content to find the purchasing mechanism for
a ‘new 3 day Travelcard’. 1 day cards don’t appear
to be viable for TfL to sell on the internet and 7-day cards require
a photocard for any children. This replaces the 10 options that
were previously available. Having purchased this ticket, it will
then be sent to them by post. However, the website will only be
in an English language version, payment must be made by credit
card in £GBP (exchange rates apply again) and should the
flight be delayed or changed, charges and delays will add another
concern to the list, especially if the change is last minute.
With
the huge efforts afforded by Visit London and other key bodies
throughout London swelling visitor numbers to the Capital, TfL,
even at this late stage, has left many questions and concerns unanswered,
only a few of which are covered in this article. Imagine the picture
of hoards of visitors arriving without Travelcards at the airport,
imagine the queues, the questions, their uncertainty and lack of
direction on which Travelcard or ticket to buy… the ticket
offices and machines will be engulfed by queues of disgruntled
and bewildered visitors, and both locals and visitors will be pretty
disgruntled.
Perhaps it’s not too late to get this strategy
right for the long-term benefit of tourism in London. One asks
an immediate question illustrating the necessity to get greater
clarity, “does this bode well when considering TfL’s
part in the bid to host the Olympics in London, 2012?”
We
sent a copy of this article to TfL and their spokesman commented
that ‘the commission payable has been decided at 10% across
the board and that a ‘variety’ of ticket options will
be available.’
However, despite these comments and a subsequent press release,
it proves somewhat misleading and still leaves a number of questions
unanswered.
Firstly, is 10% commission to be payable to both small and major volume sellers
(5 or 5,000)?
Secondly, 1 day sold on the internet is not economically viable, that leaves
a 3 or 7-day option but the 7-day needs a photocard for children. The ‘new’ 3-day
ticket will replace the Visitor Travelcard zones 1-6 (current price £19.80
Adult & no time restrictions) with (like for like) a 3-day peak Travelcard
(price £36.00). If visitors arrive or indeed travel before 9.30am they’ll
pay peak prices or if they buy 3-day peak as they need to include Friday, they
pay peak for Sat & Sunday which is obviously off peak and no reduction
in price, even more bizarrely start on a Sunday……!?
Similarly,
visitors coming for a long weekend, now need to buy a 1-day off-peak
Travelcard zones 1-6 for their Friday arrival
or Monday departure at £5.40, and then a Weekend Travelcard £8.10
totalling £13.50. The new 3-day off-peak zones 1-6 Travelcard
is offered at £18.00 –
Confused? Imagine how our visitors will feel. And as for the trade,
they lose their current incentive of attraction discounts and cost-effective
commission structure and gain greater inconvenience. And London
itself loses a valuable and popular product that helped encourage
a vibrant visitor market to visit the Capital and once here use
public transport without inconveniencing Londoners and innocently
suffering even longer, slower queues.
MH
STOP
PRESS!!!
We've just heard that thanks to this article and various "trade representations"to
TfL they have just agreed to increase their agency commission to
20%!
|
