Caught between a rock and a hard place

New Mexico Business Journal, June, 1998 by Nancy Foley

"If you call the airline," points Out Fletcher, "do you think they're going to be able to recommend a hotel near the company where you need to be for your meeting? Arc they going to be able to tell you some neat restaurant down the street from where you're going to stay? I don't think so. They're not equipped to give the service that is given by travel agents."

Fletcher and her fellow agents are counting on clients recognizing the value of that service - but aren't waiting around for that realization to dawn: "For years," says Calderwood, "we told people we were for free. Well, if you're for free, what are you marketing? Nothing. You're just getting a commission. We're going to have to learn to market our services."

And whether or not agencies evolve successfully will affect more than just the ticket buyers at one end of the travel industry food chain. "Travel agencies still play a key role in packaging and distributing the tourism products," says Dry. "New Mexico is really vulnerable in this whole issue because we have a much higher percentage of small, independent, non-chain tourism businesses. They're not affiliated with large chains and don't have large marketing budgets to reach the New England market, or the Arizona or California market. And they have to rely upon other people to help them sell their product - and that's the travel agencies located in New England, Arizona and California."

What's good for the client is also good for the local economy. And in the end, the commission cuts that forced agencies to take stock might earn them a higher - and more valued - profile.

"If you're a small business," says Fletcher, "you're going to have setbacks of one sort or another. And then decide: is this going to destroy me, or am I going to try to find a way out? It just depends on how able and willing you are to change with it."

"When they capped commissions and then cut them," says Calderwood, "it didn't depress me. It invigorated me. I was an advocate of the airlines giving us a commission cut because we're business people. A commission is a gimme; it's their money. If I can't survive because I provide a service, then I probably shouldn't be in business."

Nancy Foley is an Albuquerque freelance writer.