The CoronaVirus has affected us all.                                                         

It is only October 2020, but in response to many clients’ requests, we have collated some past predictions with apt radio and written media commentary from Max Najar, the Director and Manager of Axis Travel Centre with expanded explanations and revelations that you may be unaware of, in how we use privy connections and services to assist you.

Axis Travel Centre predicts these aspects to happen before mid-2021

  1. Over 60% of travel Agents will not be in business from late 2020 to early 2021 onwards, unfortunately negatively affecting the travel arrangements of many clients .Axis Travel does not form part of this prediction.
  2. There will be a huge pool of experienced travel agency staff who will want to be re-employed but also there will be a huge pool of incompetent and in-experienced travel agency staff that will not be re-employable, allowing an Agency to select wisely those who best suit their business.
  3. In the future, we expect quality, complex consumer bookings ,to rely upon using high quality , secured and accredited Travel Agents .This reliance is due to COVID19 having already caused the bankruptcy or severe restricted services of over* 48 Airlines, Cruises, Tour companies, Hotels and web-based online travel services. Unfortunately many consumers have discovered the complexities in getting refunds or being forced to accept (un)suitable travel options or have lost their monies.*Up to August 2020.
  4. Travel Insurance policies, impacted by the Covid19 drama, have revealed how policies were useless or confusing or both when claims were made. We can expect that the new Travel Insurance policies to be written in plain English with an expansion on what is and what is not covered .Expect clarification of virus coverages, with higher premium costs and mandatory disclaimers to be  “signed-off” by travellers.
  5. We predict that only strong, resilient, accredited Travel Agencies with the highest levels of credentials and qualified professional staff will either choose to stay in business whilst others will either be forced to close up or voluntarily exit the industry due to their diminished desire, personal health or new lifestyle choices that they have chosen to pursue.
  6. Expect that from late 2020 to early 2021 a slow periodic increase of leisure travellers with the more experienced travellers focussing to minimize their booking and monetary risks from a smaller pool of Travel Agents, Airlines, Tour Companies, Cruises and other suppliers to cater for their travel needs. Expect a faster increase of Business travellers who will request their travel to materialise quickly, with these travellers placing a new focus on securing a dependable, reliable , one-stop travel service who can deliver solid advice with good backup services, as they re-establish their interstate & overseas face-to-face contacts that Zoom, FaceTime and other web-programs could not emulate.
  7. We predict a higher monetary spend from the mature, elderly or retired travellers linked with a slow but noticeable increase in their travel requests as they spend their “kept” monies and make up for “lost time”,relying on an Agent who can deliver stable, value-added travel services and not price alone. Respectfully, this prediction is based on travellers who accept the limited travel time left within their lifespan.
  8. Experienced travellers will think more carefully on where they invest their travel monies, especially travellers who have had to negotiate through the COVID19 maze of complex travel amendment, cancellation and confusing refund conditions, lost monies or who may have been captive to huge phone and email delays .We expect these travellers to bias the one-stop services of a Travel Agency who can deliver many layers of travel services , plus those surviving Travel Agents should expect many loyal COVID19 affected clients to return their loyalty back to the Agency, especially those who were advised and guided into satisfactory solutions, negotiated by the Agency that no consumer could have reached by themselves.
  9. Future Travel Agencies will reduce their bricks and mortar offices in size and in-house staff by contracting home-based advisors, focussing on investing more time and money into high quality staff via ongoing staff training, new technology and educationals to complement their staff expertise and experience.
  10. The travel experience will permanently change as clients and the travel industry adopts new levels of travel fees/levies with new layers of security and health checks, extra documentation rules, extended travel delays underwritten by monetary fines imposed upon clients, and against Airlines, Cruises and all Suppliers who do not abide by new regulations. We predict 3 layers of travel checks to be introduced, namely called [P.D.P ] ,Pre, During and Post checks ,until a suitable vaccine is adopted. Expect ever-changing D.P. checks to be introduced worldwide with reduced capacity limitations to be introduced for seats, cabins and hotel rooms or to gain entry into attractions. Expect a new set of fees imposed onto those who need to secure “last-minute” or “spontaneous” bookings, with travel preferences given to those arrangements that can be secured in a timely manner, to meet new security and health clearance protocols. Expect ongoing frustrations BUT the good news is that the combined merging of discoveries from the world Health and Security industries linked to new protocols will resolve most, if not all, of our current COVID19 issues.

AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: “Humans are nomads, driven by curiosity and discovery, so our combined global efforts to return to a world that allows us to enjoy intimate personal travel experiences, visiting destinations, viewing world sights, experiencing human rapport with family and friends , using our individual senses of sight, sound, smell and touch, will return”

AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: EXAMPLE OF A HISTORICAL PREDICTION: In Feb 2020 , an Axis Travel global media article quote, prior to W.H.O. Pandemic classification was published  : “……..I regard this not as another virus problem but as a true worldwide Industrial Revolution, not experienced by us humans since the 1800’s.  

This “Revolution” has already changed the world we live in but it has also unthreaded our old social fabric, applying new sewing techniques into how we will all live our lives into the future.

This CoronaVirus continues to destroy old business relationships, creating new relationships, forcing us all to rethink our employment strategies, disrupting links within the old manufacturing chains and applying new challenges in how we manage health and technology……………..Grab your diaries and scrapbooks as we are all living in a historical time zone that our children and grandchildren will study and reflect upon”.

HERE TODAY  : WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW.

Axis Travel Centre will survive whatever takes place in assisting all current and future clients through the maze and complexities of advice, cancellations, postponements and refunds.

The dedicated staff at Axis Travel Centre have and continue to invest long hours within our office physically and remotely to assist our loyal clients who were or remain stranded interstate or overseas, on cruise ships, locked away in hotels, making contact with clients in outback regions of the world whilst liaising with Airlines, Cruises, Hotel and travel suppliers to amend or cancel travel components, especially as borders open then close then open again.

We are advising and guiding clients, in a well-structured priority manner, interpreting suppliers booking conditions and assisting with Insurance rulings and paperwork’s, using over 42 years of industry expertise and industry contacts.

Throughout this COVID19 period, we have maintained our accreditations with AFTA, ATAS, CLIA, CRUISECO and TIDS including the unique + free “SECURITY UMBRELLA” © Protection Package which includes free client protection under the  SAFI protection (Scheduled Airline Failure  Insurance) against possible financial collapse of an Airline when we book and issue airtickets .We are the only travel agent in South Australia with this SAFI protection.*No Airline or *Supplier in Australia has this free SAFI protection in place for clients. Think smart and book wisely! *As at Aug 2020

HERE TOMORROW : OUR RESILIENCE WILL CONTINUE.

Some clients remain anxious and unaware of exactly what to do, what not to do, how to react, how to change or cancel travel plans, when to consider future travel plans or how best to approach Travel Insurers .

In times of high anxiety and uncertainty, we use human rapport and empathy that overrides technology.

We prefer to depend upon our trusted travel industry colleagues to assist us in times of need, extend favours or secure solid advice that usually supersedes written rules or generic conditions, in favour of our valued clients.

They respect us and we respect them especially as we deliver multiple travel bookings to them and not solo bookings.We know that this virus impact will eventually pass, as we re-engineer our services to return to what we do best.If you are anxious about any current or possible future travel with us, please contact us.

HEAR WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY :

WE DO NOT RELY UPON CONSUMER WEBSITES OR PHONE NUMBERS.

Our travel industry is fabulous in marketing what we can sell but we are not very good in communicating to the public and parts of the media how we use our toolkit of expertise and experience, our confidential Closed User Group [CUG] computer links, our human industry contacts or our privy websites that the public and media cannot access.

Our privy access allows us to offer more travel choices and value-added price options to assist clients compared against the many basic (flimsy) consumer travel websites and many 1300/1800 advertised travel phone numbers .

TECHNOLOGY WE USE- Logically ,our staff also have full access to all consumer websites and travel offers. When you add these consumer offers to our own industry specific unadvertised offers, it saturates our job with more travel options enabling us to research and compare what is relevant and viable to book ,using our expertise and experience .

After over 42 years in travel, we prefer not to waste monies and time on expensive consumer marketing plans.

With over 86% of our clients derived from past clients or referred clientele ,we prefer to invest our monies into providing unique client protections, such as the FREE  SAFI protection (Scheduled Airline Failure  Insurance) coverage within our “SECURITY UMBRELLA” © Protection Package  and annually upgrading our client centric Computer Reservations System (CRS) systems , software and staff training programs .

 WHAT IS A CRS [Computer Reservation System] that Travel Agents rely so heavily upon ?
We rely upon a CRS that is not available to consumers, but is authenticated and accessible via trained industry professionals via a series of internationally accredited and recognisable courses. We use the “long-format”, MS DOS codes that are not windows based, offering far better uninterrupted speed, also being far less prone to external hacking, security breaches ,3rd party encryption infiltrations or ID theft issues.

Axis Travel Centre , has a mandatory annual policy that all credentialed staff must maintain extra courses and update their SABRE CRS skillsets to remain employed/contracted. We have spent over four decades  using the power of a CRS [Computer Reservation System] which requires us to use highly specific keyboard entries into encrypted software platforms, to link into secured industry specific domains .We use the “SABRE” CRS that is equipped with security protocols through the use of encrypted VPN communication, and multi-factor authentication. Sabre uses global collaboration infrastructure that supports voice, video, chat, mail, file sharing, and desktop sharing capabilities from any location, as well as secure access to all Sabre applications and infrastructure.

AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: HOW SABRE HELPED THE FBI/CIA:“ ………I remember that during the 2001 Sept 11th attack of  New York city and the 2003 Iraqi war events, the SABRE CRS and AMEX Satellite and software systems were partly commandeered by the US Government and their FBI and CIA departments to transfer their data worldwide as our systems utilized satellites with software commands that were regarded as more secure with less chance of foreign interception than what IBM ,Windows and Apple had. This commandeering did slightly compromise our office speeds but we understood their need to do what they needed to do………………..”

As at April 2020, the SABRE + CRS connectivity allows us to access over 400 airlines, 200,000 hotels, 300 tour operators, 50 rail carriers, 40 car rental outlets and 180 cruise lines in addition to trusted linked software sources.

HEAR WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY :  A BOOKING COMPARISON EXAMPLE: HEAR THE BIG DIFFERENCES!

Comparing a booking made via Axis Travel Centre against consumer websites + toll Free calls:

EXAMPLE: Via our CRS we can compare airlines on one-screen , complete a 4 sector flight Itinerary,  add your name, your contact details, frequent flyer number, request seating, secure special inflight meal and facility requests , book a car transfer and hotel room with executive floor access ,add your Hotel club number and issue your ETicket with travel vouchers in less than 90 seconds .

A fast typing consumer, using multiple websites, adding the same requested data as above will lose at least 25 to 45 minutes to do the same booking, in addition to accepting liability for errors or omissions they make and the voracity as to the authenticity and security levels of the websites that they use ,let alone trusting where the data is given to.

Apart from huge time savings made, the use of our CRS systems delivers additional client benefits of authenticity, security, accuracy and us taking liability for what is asked , which no consumer initiated booking process can match

AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: A simple CRS booking example “ When we make a clients’ travel bookings  we use an integrated two screen CRS system On one screen we assemble multiple Airlines into one sequential flight booking in chronological order, checking Airline interline agreements, Minimum Connection ties allowed in transit, international transit visa allowances, then creating legally allowable automate multiple fare quotes from thousands of choices and permutations, add seating, food and wheelchair or other special service requests, continuing in the same booking screen to add frequent flyer numbers then synchronize transfers ,vehicle rentals ,any Hotels and Cruises. On the second screen we link this data into this same booking referencing the appropriate travel insurance based on clients’ data, allocated time away into specific destinations held whilst checking the legal international health and visa advice against “real-time” Border Security and international Government updates via our trusted and accredited sources. This CRS investment is not free, incurring ongoing Agency fees and ongoing staff training  but this investment provides us with the highest levels of speed and efficiencies that would take any consumer hours to research via multiple websites, with risks on the voracity of their source material.”

 As stated earlier, the travel industry is great at marketing products we sell but not so good in delivering an insight into what we do, what we invest in and what it delivers to you.

RESPONSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY and LIABILITY : HEAR OUR LEGALITIES!

Unlike anonymous websites, outsourced phone numbers or some disappearing travel companies, the management and staff of Axis Travel Centre exist from a solid bricks and mortar office with humans you can relate to.

  • Our services start from your initial consultation, during the booking process, when travel is being undertaken and after your return. We are not just a booking platform. We offer a complete travel service.
  • We are legally accountable and liable in what we do and say, governed by our held Travel Industry accreditations and Government, ACCC, ASIC, Consumer Affairs standards.
  • We must deliver what is asked of us, paying any fines attributable to us, such as us spell errors, not correctly performing our duties on your behalf, misinterpreting complex rulings ,placing wrong codes on tickets or vouchers or simply missing ticketing or final balance deadlines.

The end game is that we are always contactable by you, Government authorities and travel suppliers. We wear the consequences. We do not disappear, remain anonymous, and have no huge layers of red tape to get lost within. We are not a large “untouchable” corporation or a mysterious baseless seller.

 AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: DID YOU KNOW, IF WE MAKE MISTAKES: “If we enter a wrong name, date or sector or flight from what was advised by clients, we wear all costs to rebook, amend and re-issue documents, costing us thousands.

Alternatively, if we forget to cancel a 4 sector Air ticket that we have booked, under CRS rulings we can be issued with an ADM (Agency Debit Memo) for $110 USD per sector per person. An example is that a four sector ticket will cost us $440 USD (not AUD$) per person , plus if this Airline booking was linked to a Hotel stay, which had a “non-refundable” policy against the price paid of $3,000, then we would be required to wear that cost as well. Importantly any ADM costs (fines) we get cannot be disputed as they remain on our computers historical data, date and time stamped, with monies automated to be extracted from our Bank Account. Some Travel Agents have had to close their doors after receiving too many ADM’s …….”

We accept such responsibilities as part of the professional standards we work within. You are protected.

 HEAR WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY :  RISK MANAGEMENT: BE AWARE. MINIMIZE YOUR EXPOSURES.

Many travellers invest a huge amount of time researching, reading articles and then (maybe)  booking travel based on what they have absorbed or believed via publicity, peer groups, media or other influences . Be cautious. Be careful.

 AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: RISKS: “Booking travel has risks involved, as does life in general. Nobody can guarantee that travel undertaken or monies paid or data shared can ever be transacted without risks attached. When researching or booking travel, try to minimize your exposure to risk by using a bricks and mortar, touchable, credentialed travel agency or a website that is Australian based. Research the authenticity, the accreditations, reputation, and expertise of any Agency or website because some websites can appear one day and disappear the next as it is easy to scam you or upload logos to fool you ,  misuse your data online or have criminal links associated with that website. Most blogsites cannot be verified for their honesty , truthfulness or comment authenticity with some having comments placed via bribes or via a vested competitors interest. Some have led to the closure of travel businesses, cafes, hotels and more with some comments uploaded from a direct competitors input. Personally I like the acronym of BLOG translated as Big Load Of Gossip, which has been attributed to TripAdvisor and others. If your travel bookings work out well, then that is OK but if negative issues erupt, then engaging lawyers can cost you many thousands of dollars, noting that the ACCC or Consumer Affairs can usually not assist.

You can minimize risks by trusting the advice of a professional travel agent who holds accreditations and credentialed human staff whom you can access (“AXIS”!) ,rather than they being unaccredited or anonymous. Most travel offers can be  secured and paid for via an accredited Australian Travel Agent holding legal credentials and security layers attached to your travel arrangements abiding by AFTA, ATAS, ACCC, ASIC and all relevant Consumer Affairs regulations and standards.

TIME: HEAR HOW IMPORTANT TIME IS FOR US ALL.

If you place a value on the limited time we have in our lifespan- consider these facts

  • We respect your time and ask that you respect our time.

WASTING TIME : Many Airlines or suppliers place phone calls “on-hold” , or force discussions with people who may not have a clue of what you need answered  or travellers communicating with an overseas language call centre , wasting time on phone calls or receiving unsatisfactory automated email responses . Add to this the common problem of having phone calls ”drop out” or receiving the “please ring back later” message- wasting time and creating stress.

Using most Afterhours or Emergency contacts, may offer Call-centre automated responses or humans who do not know who you are or cannot (or will not!) retrieve your important travel Itinerary, as time and quick responses are essential.

With Axis Travel Centre, you will always be able to deal direct with your professional advisor or be linked to an advisor who can speedily retrieve your travel file and assist.. See TESTIMONIALS on website www.axistravel.com.au

 AXIS MANAGEMENT COMMENT: “DOMINO EFFECT”: “An example of this is after we secure ,say, ten travel components but one component changes or is cancelled ,by client or any external influence, then the “domino affect” starts, affecting one component then the other nine connected components. This legally obligates us to begin the lengthy process to amend all affected components into a logical and workable chronological order, which is a priceless service, that takes time”

Time is our most precious and priceless life component. It cannot be bought or credited or refunded.

Thank you for your patience, understanding & loyalty as we enter our 43rd  year in what we do best.

Our motto: “Where professional advice and quality service matter most”  still remains our mantra today.

Max Najar     –  Director and Manager – Parent of Axis Travel Centre, -Axis Travel  -born in June 1978.

A serious with a bit of fun VIDEO link E: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47i0t-j8iWc&feature=youtu.be