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Internet threat to high street travel agents
[November 26, 2005]

Internet threat to high street travel agents


(Daily Post (Liverpool))A THIRD of all travel agencies will close in the next 10 years unless agents embrace the internet, a travel chief warned yesterday.

Numbers could fall from just over 6,000 now to around 4,200 in a decade's time, said Chris Mottershead, the former boss of travel agency Lunn Poly. "If you're not on the internet now, you really have to ask yourself what century you are in," he told delegates at the Association of British Travel Agents' convention in Marrakech, Morocco.



Mr Mottershead is now chiefexecutive of Travelzest, travel group focused on specialist holiday services.

He told travel agents: "Around 30% of your business should be coming via the web. Customers rightly expect to be able to deal with you on the internet - whether to find you in the first place, whether to research your offers or whether to make a booking.


"Customers expect you to do something for them, to organise their holiday for them. To do that you will have to take on the job of being the tour operator

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