Dunsborough Helloworld is one of two travel agents in the area to become an accredited travel scheme after Western Australia’s licensing system for travel agents was culled last week.
Helloworld and other agencies previously paid a fee into a yearly travel compensation fund which was used to “bail out” travel agents who went broke and refund their clients.
Helloworld manager and owner Anita Ness said there were a lot of agents running their business with great office practises who were not happy paying money into the fund year after year to bail out those who were not running a good business.
“The Australian federation of travel agents lobbied to abolish the compensation fund,” Ms Ness said.
“This went through on the July 1 and now the federation has introduced the new scheme where agents have to meet a certain criteria to become accredited.
“We are also backed by the Helloworld Customer Protection Policy, which will compensate affected consumers in the event of agency failure.”
She said this effectively replaced the protection afforded by the travel compensation fund.
The move comes at a time when travellers are increasingly buying travel online directly from airlines and accommodation providers, and through interstate and international agents.
Commerce Minister Michael Mischin said while the WA government did not originally support total deregulation of the Australian travel industry but it could not be the only State with a stand-alone licensing and consumer compensation scheme.
“This would have put travel agents here at a distinct competitive disadvantage to their interstate and overseas counterparts, for little or no benefit to customers,” Mr Mischin said.
The Minister said consumers were still protected under Australian Consumer Law for travel transactions.
