The fights and disputes brought about by Directive No. 140 are, fortunately, over now.
The TIC issued the Directive on 16 September 2005 with a view to attaining two objectives: to recongise members' need to charge a service fee for collecting a large number of surcharges and taxes on behalf of many parties, and to educate the travellers about the need to pay a fee for the professional services provided by travel agents.
After the issue of the Directive, a dozen or so ticket consolidators decided to collect from their ticketing agent partners half of the amount of the service fee concerned for the reason that they were also engaged in the collection of surcharges and taxes. Their decision aroused strong objections from many agents.
To settle the dispute, Ticketing Committee Convenor Mr Tommy Tam, Executive Director Mr Joseph Tung and I have repeatedly negotiated with the consolidators, which, to their credit, have decided to suspend collecting the relevant amount of money from ticketing agents. I would therefore like to thank all those traders who have contributed their efforts to the successful resolution of the matter.
Although charging customers a service fee is a big trend for the travel agent industry, it is a commercial decision of members and therefore they have to decide for themselves how to handle matters such as those concerning whether or not to charge such a fee and the way to maintain customer relations based on their own situations. I do hope members will all be able to find a business model most suitable to themselves.
Ronnie Ho
17 October 2005