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Luzi Matzig in TravelAsia
TravelAsia, April 12, 1996
The EC Directive, the trend towards new destinations
- factors that have fuelled a rise in cllaims for compensation.
When is it right to hand out compensation? And who should do so?
Luzi Matzig, general manager of Diethelm Travel Thailand, believes
the answer lies beyond passing the buck or blaming each other.
The issue of compensation has always been around in our industry
- tourists who complain about poor transsportation or accommodation
that does not meet their expectations and want their money or
part of their money back.
The industry, being a service-oriented one, has always
paid up. Because it is easier to solve the problem. Because one
unhappy customer can do a lot of damage by spreading the word
about. Because we want to preserve the "travel is a happy
business" image.
Today, however, with tour operators facing escalating
costs and eroding margins, I am not sure we can continue with
this "let's pay when they ask" approach.
The EC Directive has made things worse for tour operators
in Asia handling European operators and their clients. Cases of
clients demanding compensation, citing "lack of enjoyment",
have escalated.
That's one half of the picture. The other half is
that clients are going to new destinations, places such as Indochina
where standards are not yet that high but expectations are. So
when they go home to Europe, they demand compensation for poor
quality of buses, guides and accommodation - those are the three
often cited areas of complaint.
They turn to their travel agents in Europe for compensation.
And what do the travel agents do? Turn to their Asian tour operators.
The situation today has become ridiculous. Clients
are demanding compensation for trifling things and the European
tour operators are giving in too easily - perhaps because they
are afraid of going to court or perhaps because they think they
can always count on their Asian agent to pay up.
Plus, clients are no longer asking for just 10 per
cent compensation but, in some cases, are demanding 50 per cent.
This is too much.
What's worse is, the client books a Germany-Germany
package and I am only providing a say, Yangon-Yangon package which
may only be 10 per cent of the total package price - but the European
agent expects me to refund 20 per cent of the total package price.
They say this is because the client said he only
booked the whole tour to see Pagan and because standards in Pagan
did not meet his expectations, his whole holiday is ruined.
Is this fair?
European tour operators must stop giving in too easily
and occasionally go to court. Or they should have an insurance
that pays for such claims.
The tour operator in Asia cannot be held responsible
for footing the whole bill.
The markets where we are seeing increased claims
for compensation are mainly the European ones - Germany being
the worst. Switzerland and the UK are also on the rise. The Americans
are not such a problem.
We tour operators are at the receiving end of this
problem.
Up to now, we have always given in. We bargain a
little bit. Some, we try and pass the buck but that's difficult.
If you have a good deal with a bus company and then you try and
claim compensation, you don't have a bus tomorrow.
We also give in to preserve a business relationship
- it's hard to say no to people who givee you business every week.
You don't want to lose the business.
It is time the industry in Asia comes up with a collective
answer to the problem of compensation.
Perhaps associations such as the ASEAN Tourism Association
or PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) should come up with
a set of guidelines on what constitutes fair and reasonable compensation
- when should compensation be paid and hhow much - so that Asian
tour operators, when confronted with claims, can refer to it and
use it as the industry standard.
I believe this must be done on a regional level.
This would give us more clout in dealing with such cases which
are costing tour operators thousands of dollars a year.
In these days when every buck counts, we can ill
afford this.
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