"Quit Yanking My Supply Chain" - The Challenges Facing Travel Agencies in Canada - ARCHIVED

Travel Agencies in Canada enter the new millennium with many challenges. The gap that they must bridge is a possible erosion of both revenue and customers. The aviation industry has been imposing caps on commissions resulting in the requirement for agencies to sell more product to generate the same revenue. At the same time, selling more product could be more difficult as air carriers and hotels are increasingly offering more direct sales on the Internet. This web presence has enabled carriers and hotels to deliver their product bypassing the travel agencies in the supply chain. There is also increased competition from travel sales web-sites that attempt to attract the business that local travel agents once could have considered as their own. The paper will examine the nature of the challenges facing this service industry and the possible responses.