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Luzi Matzig in TravelAsia TravelAsia, January 17, 1997 ACTION NEEDED ON BAD DEBTS, EC DIRECTIVE By Raini Hamdi Bad debts and the EC Directive became two hot issues at last week's ASEAN Tourism Forum, with local partners of overseas tour operators calling for action on both. ASEAN agents said that the EC Directive and a seeming rise in the number of overseas operators going bust posed a "double whammy", making life even harder for them. On protection against bad debts, agents pressed for a more formal credit alert system, like the one launched in Australia (TravelAsia, January 10). The call to fight back the EC Directive was sparked off by Diethelm Travel Thailand's Luzi Matzig who, in addressing the ASEAN Tourism Conference, charged that overseas tour operators had been unfair in passing the buck of compensation to local agents. Matzig argued that laws made in Europe should not elbow their way to the destinations programmed by overseas tour operators and demanded that the EC made it compulsory instead for all overseas tour operators to have compensation claims insurance. Agents felt that there should be clear-cut solutions to both issues, especially now that new destinations in ASEAN, such as those in Indochina, were opening up, and in light of the string of bankruptcies recently. Current measures of credit alert were too informal and did not provide enough protection, they said. Often by the time agents discovered that the overseas operator was folding up, it's too late to regain the monies owed to them. In Singapore, the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore provides a "pink copy" which essentially contains information on bad debtors. But, said Mohd Harharah, managing director of Malaysia and Singapore Travel Centre, "The pink copy is not circulated or published unless you have taken legal action against the overseas operator. By then, it may be too late. A system like Australia's helps; otherwise, these bad debtors will take everyone for a ride. WHAT LOCAL PARTNERS WANT DONE ABOUT ...THE EC DIRECTIVE For the EC to make it compulsory for all overseas tour operators to have compensation claims insurance. For travel agents' bodies like ASEANTA or PATA to come up with some yardsticks as to what would constitute "fair" claims and the extent of the local partners' responsibility in each cases. BAD DEBTS For a credit alert system that's (a) more formal (b) more detailed (c) more regional More on Luzi Matzig