Ice Cream melts

The travel bug bit again! Ashwin and Samiha decided to join us this time, so double the excitement.

Normally it is me, or Ashwin, who plan the entire trip - from flights to hotels, sightseeing to shopping, where to eat, what to do, the works. A good friend calls me her travel manager.

I enjoy the research, and the tasks, love the absolute control over the trip, not to mention that DIY is at least 20-30% cheaper.

But this time, both Ashwin and I were busy, and not in a position to give the trip the time and mind space it deserved. So, we decided to utilize the services of a travel planner.

The first one, and the only one we reached out to, was a small outfit operated by some old acquaintances. I always believe in giving your business to known young entrepreneurs, it is my way of encouraging them.

After over a month of going up and down, broken itineraries, wrong dates, disjointed, and poor communication, we decided to end what was proving to be stressful, and a trip that may become a disaster.

Now the fun began in earnest. I went online and raised a query, clicked on 'Ask our expert to design your holiday' on all the travel portals - from Thomas Cook to Make My Trip. I was confident that big brands have strong processes and will be able to close my travel plans in a week or less.

Two of the four had an automated response process in place. SMS, email, and even a WhatsApp message reached me. Reassured me.

For all of 24 hours.

I received a call from one of the four, after 48 hours (not bad, considering...) The 'expert' tried to push me towards their group tour, and when I resisted, offered to get back. It is over 3 weeks, there is still no communication.

In the past few days, I have received calls and messages from the other three travel portals - three weeks after the query, and two weeks to go for the proposed holiday.

One sent me an itinerary on WhatsApp and email, asking me to make the payment!

Another made calls - multiple agents, multiple calls. The first one was graceful enough to wish me 'enjoy your trip', when I said I had closed the booking, the second abruptly cut the call.

The one that takes the cake is an online portal that sent me a customer satisfaction survey, to rate them on my experience of 'booking' a tour!

We wondered what leads to this level of apathy to potential business, lethargy in response, a lack of interest in closing, and banking potential business.

Both the large and the small tour operators we reached out to failed.

The large ones never took any action and missed the promised SLA of call-back.

The smaller one acted unprofessional, making promises and then avoiding calls, sending poorly, hastily put-together itineraries with mistakes.

I figure that right now, tour operators in the country are in a market that is flooded with demand - possibly demand beyond their capacity.

As per news articles, there has been a 21 percent increase in international travel compared to 2019, with a notable four percent increase in the first quarter of 2024 only.?

For the larger tour operators, I guess the demand outstrips their targets and plans for the year. They don't seem to mind letting go of leads and queries.

They will still overachieve KPIs, exceed targets, and achieve bonuses. They forget that demand, like ice cream, melts. If you don't consume it fast, it just leaks away.

Wonder how the bosses review the operating performance in these cases. Do they review query/lead vs conversion? Response SLAs? Do they view averages or identify the tail-ends and their volume/numbers? Do they start tying incentives and bonuses more tightly to conversions in a sellers market? Or do they keep targets static? Do they support with temporary additional capacity when the demand exceeds? Do they do things differently? Are they cognisant? Or do they settle back and bask?

Do they realize that when the market is down, the customer will remember their apathy? That customers don't forget the lack of response, the disregard shown?

When they start aggressive sales promotions, will I, the customer, want to do business with them? Or will I take my business elsewhere, to someone who is responsive to my needs even when buyers are plentiful?

What do you think? Reminds me of a story that was shared long ago by a steel industry veteran. The policy of allocating X tons of steel to each business house meant that the customer ran after their sales folks. The power was in the hands of the sales team. Corporates used to woo the salesperson, not the other way around.

Then, when the policies changed, and markets opened, they had to go and sell steel! The salespeople took a long time to pivot, and couldn't figure out why the same customer who had him on speed dial now wouldn't pickup his calls, or seemed unavailable for meetings.