Travel Advisors Resist Rivals’ Direct-Booking Efforts
Photo Credit: Some U.S. travel advisors feel that Four Seasons' direct-booking efforts undermine their businesses. Pictured is a room in the Four Seasons Maldives. Four Seasons
Skift Take
As one travel advisor told us about the Costco and state tax proposal flaps: “The little guys can fight back.”
Lawmakers in U.S. states are once again eyeing travel agencies and other service providers as a likely source of new tax revenue. Tax proposals in Connecticut, Utah, and Nebraska would require travel agencies, along with others who provide professional services, to be subject to state sales tax. For many agencies, it could be a final nail in the coffin.
A vigorous grassroots campaign led by the American Society of Travel Advisors, which has been successful in helping squash similar proposals in the past, is under way in all three states. These proposals may also come to naught, but a general trend among states to target service industries for revenue means that complacency is not an option.
The trade group is also rankled by other perceived threats to advisors, including a Today Show segment
