Buscar: 

The new assignment of travel agencies

Diverse types of insurance exist. Amongst the most common are those that insure the risks of driving on roads. Vehicle owners pay for policies according to several modalities: third party, fully comprehensive, etc. Therefore to a certain extent the inherent dangers of speed are covered.

A different business from the one of insurers is that of travel agencies. They were born to overcome the difficulties of the extraordinary trips, mainly those that are carried out in foreign countries, where the clients do not know the customs, the itineraries, the resources or the language.

The immediate future will bring a derivation of these agencies towards a field similar to the one of the insurers. They will also insure, not the trip’s risks, but the complete service.

 

 

In order to illustrate this prediction, we are going to give a concrete example. The family consisting of Ana Suárez and Juan García, and their two children, an 18 year-old boy and a 12 year-old girl, sign a contract with the agency Servicasa which states that the agency will provide a complete service for all the trips of these four people, together as well as individually, during a deferrable year. Complete service means that the agency will be in charge of putting a vehicle at the disposal of the family members for all types of trips requested in advance by telephone or the Internet, so that the traveller will be gathered from home and taken to the door of their destination. Again, on the return journey he/she will be gathered from the destination and taken home. Trips between two places other than the residence will also be included.

To give some examples:
- At 7.35 every working day a 20-seater minibus pauses outside the vestibule of number 27 Cervantes street to collect Juan García, who goes to work in a factory on an industrial estate 10 kilometres away. He has to arrive before eight o’clock. The minibus driver does not work directly for the Servicasa agency, but for the city’s transport company, which maintains an agreement with diverse agencies.
- The son also has a daily trip by minibus in the morning between home and university, but on Tuesday evening goes to a sound-engineering school in a city 30 kilometres away. The minibus supplied by Servicasa collects him at 16.15 to take him to the central bus station, from where shortly after he will take a fixed bus line to the other city. The agency is who has combined both services after he has requested the complete trip from home to that centre on the Internet.
- The 12 year-old girl goes to a swimming pool located 3 kilometres away three days a week. It is not necessary that her father or her mother go with her, because a minibus collects her on both the outward and return journey.
- For their holiday, the whole family, with their luggage, is going to travel to a coastal town located 400 kilometres away. As always, a vehicle arrives at the agreed hour outside the vestibule. This time it is not a 20-seater minibus. For greater ease with the suitcases, the family has asked for a taxi. It takes them to the railway station in sufficient time to take the expected train. At the destination station another taxi waits to take them to the door of the hotel where they are going to spend a month on holiday. Obviously, both taxis and the longer passage by train have been managed by the agency that covers all the family’s trips. Even the seat number in a certain carriage has been facilitated from Servicasa by the Internet. They have only had to show the ticket collector their credentials from the agency.
- Once lodged in the hotel, the same agency will continue covering the complete service for all tourist, commercial or any other type of trips that these four people make.

Once we have seen the examples, it seems evident that this is a very advantageous service for a family and also very feasible with current means. The benefits are better than those that possession of a private car offers. Two cars would be needed simultaneously to cover Juan’s trip to his factory and the one of Ana to her job in another place. Furthermore, for the girl to go to the swimming pool it is not necessary for any family member to drive her. In addition, a private car is subject to breakdowns, accidents and robberies that their owner must deal with. It has also the disadvantage of its parking, often problematic or expensive.

The client will pay for, as now, each of his/her journeys according to distance and the type of vehicle. What the agency will guarantee him/her will be management and a combination of services to offer cover from origin to destination for any trip requested in advance, within a certain margin of time.

At first sight, it seems that this complete service from Servicasa will be very expensive, perhaps still more than a private car, including its insurance, its maintenance and its fuel. But we have to consider that this agency will not be the only one that will take care of this business. There will be many agencies in competition with each other. And competition turns between two poles: the quality and the price. Servicasa, like any company, will be interested in offering a price and a service that attract abundant customers. On what means it can count to obtain them?

Let’s first look at the 20-seater minibuses that collect travellers from the door of origin. Those 20 places are indeed what contributes to making the public service price lower than that of a taxi. They are minibuses that follow flexible lines gathering and dropping off clients of diverse agencies that work in concert with the city’s partnership of transport. Trips will be booked in advance by telephone or the Internet, and a computer program will direct them to take maximum advantage of vehicles’ and drivers’ work. These will follow the instructions on journeys and stops that the program will be displaying on a screen connected to central control.

As far as longer trips on fixed train or bus lines are concerned, agencies will obtain lower prices from the companies than would independent clients, considering the volume of business each one can present. The same can be said of taxis.

In summary, the agencies that provide a complete service will offer trips that are cheaper than the possession and use of a private vehicle, as affordable to an average family as the heating or electric bill. They will also be far more comfortable and useful than the diverse current means of public transport.

As soon as conditions are met so that a few agencies begin to take care of this service, there will be a lot fewer private cars circulating or parked in the cities.

---