Essential Travel Agency News & Updates in WA

What’s Next for Broadway Travel?

The Beginning Of A New Chapter...

To our very valued clients,

Covid has changed many things for all of us. The travel industry is one that has been impacted very significantly. Just as there was optimism that the market was recovering, and people were confident to travel again, the airlines dealt the industry a huge blow. They decided, that as a result of losses that they had sustained during the Covid lockdown period, they needed to reduce their distribution costs.
 
How could they do that? They had let so many staff go, service levels were at an all-time low, and it had become almost impossible for customers to actually speak to anyone at an airline if they needed help with their booking. As illogical as it sounds the one solution they came up with was to stop paying travel agents to distribute their product! This would save them money and pass the burden on to travel agents to charge a fee to the customer.       

For many agents, this was the final nail in the coffin. How could a travel agent survive? Up until this point, the cost to book with an agent had been exactly the same as going direct to the airline but the agent had been remunerated with a very small commission for the service offered.

Something Had To Give!
 
About 12 months ago we, at Broadway Travel, recognised that to survive we too would have to change and review our operating model. We had already drastically reduced our staff numbers and without the economies of scale, the current bricks and mortar model could not survive. After much consideration, we joined the MTA Travel Group – Mobile Travel Agents. This move allowed us to keep trading as Broadway Travel – Broadway MTA – but also provided us with the flexibility to become home based if we chose to do that at some time in the future. 

Broadway Travel was formed some 40 years ago by friends Suzanne Baker and Toni Chambers. Very sadly Toni passed away in 2011 but the business carried on with Toni’s husband, Bill Chambers, standing by Suzanne. Early in 2021 Bill made the decision to retire and invited Di Doust, who had worked in the business since 2005, to partner with Suzanne Baker. Suzanne and Di together have over 80 years of combined experience in travel – both having worked in the industry for more than 40 years.

We would like to thank all of our wonderful clients for the incredible support that you have given Broadway Travel over the past 40 years and we sincerely hope that you will continue to support us in the future. We expect the change to our operating model to have little impact as we will continue to have full access to our computer reservation and ticketing systems, our accounting systems, travellers’ profiles and most importantly our booking records.

What definitely won’t change is our commitment to offering our extensive knowledge, experience and service excellence (including 24/7 emergency assistance) for all your travel requirements. If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact either of us.

- Suzanne Baker & Dianne Doust