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Ideal Travel
Ideal Travel was formed in Oct 1983 following my 8 years in the travel trade mostly working for independents and a car hire company. Ideal Travel has now been around for 27 years and over the last 20 years has been a member of different consortia, firstly ARTAC/Worldchoice and latterly Independent Options. 2 to 3 years ago trading conditions were getting tougher and tougher; we were also using our own ATOL license that we had held for more than 10 years. Due to the risks involved and an increasingly bad trading pattern, it became obvious that we had to look at alternatives in order to check the slide of both turnover and bottom line to ensure our survival.
Why Freedom Travel Group?
During the summer of 2009 I looked at various options, and all things considered, Freedom were the choice for us. The main selling points for us included not having to have the ever increasing red tape, paperwork, form filling and substantial costs of maintaining our own ABTA and ATOL licenses. We had used the TARSC computer system for many years, so as Freedom also use TARSC that made the changeover easier. Freedom makes all of our tour operator payments which cut down on our admin time and it has also substantially reduced our bank charges and associated accountancy charges. We get good merchant services rates with no threats of large bonds for the privilege, and importantly, commission levels were generally much better than we had previously received, even allowing for the deductions for our Freedom fee.
ATOL and ATBA cover
Finally we would have access to a dynamic packaging tool that does still have issues, but they are getting there! and the chance to use the Freedom ATOL and ABTA licenses which means we have a good level of flexibility of suppliers and we are able, for a small fee, to protect our clients holiday without the financial risk to ourselves we were previously exposed to. If we hadn’t joined Freedom in September 2009, the volcanic ash situation in April 2010 could well have finished us off as we would have had a lot of bookings under our own ATOL.
The only real downside, even though the biggest hurdle was the thought of it! Was losing the cash flow security we had always enjoyed as previously, clients part balances and balances sat in our account for weeks or months which always gave us a buffer against the bad winter cash flow. Going into Freedom in September meant that all the money we were holding went into the Freedom account leaving us to get through the winter with minimal commissions coming in. Although this was difficult, it did make us keep expenditure tight, which in itself was a good exercise.
Moving all the existing bookings over to the new ABTA number was a challenging time, but the support staff at Freedom were brilliant and always there to help with assistance, advice and helping to notify tour operators about the change of ABTA.
18 months on, the decision has proved to be a good one. On a simplistic basis, the extra commissions cover the Freedom fee, time spent doing admin has greatly reduced, bank, accountancy, ABTA and CAA fees are reduced or a thing of the past. We have also saved costs on office and indemnity insurance and there is no doubt that we are in a better financial position now than we were prior to joining.
Still have our independence
We still feel independent despite being part of the Co-operative Travel Group and although there are some rules and there is some loss of flexibility, most of the rules are there as much for our benefit and our protection as anything else. Being part of a large group will never be the same as being completely stand alone and independent, but the way things are, that is not necessarily a bad thing and the small loss of some independence that comes with membership of Freedom is totally outweighed by having the security and confidence of being part of something that is on your side and that you can trust.
The future for us
As for the future, who knows? The travel business continues to shoot itself in the foot; we have no choice but to support tour operators who are doing their best to wipe the floor with us while the catalogue of natural disasters, strikes and collapses continues. I don’t know why sometimes, but the truth is that we love the travel industry and I believe that the best way to ensure the survival of Ideal Travel in these challenging times is to be part of a forward thinking consortium.
If some of the above sounds familiar, you won’t lose anything by talking to Freedom and other consortia and make up your own mind. All I can say is that it has helped us find our feet again and will hopefully give us the base which with hard work, will see us continue to be profitable.