Airlines Told To Expect Millions Of Tourists

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 13

Airlines Told To Expect Millions Of Tourists

More than 100 million tourists will travel by air during the next ifive years to the countries which can provide the accommodation they require, Mr John Branckcr, traffic director of the International Air Transport Association (1.A.T.A.), told the twelfth congress of the International Union of Official Travel Organisations in Washington recently. If certain countries did not fulfil those requirements, the tourists would go elsewhere, he said. Mr Branckcr foresees international air travel expanded to 30 million passengers a year by 1962—more than double that of 1956. These passengers, he said, are going to be of a special type. No longer is air travel primarily at the service of the “moneyed classes”; today, by bringing an international holiday into the same sort of price category as a television set, the airlines have in fact become the moans of travel for the "little man.” "We have found that although air transport caters to all classes it is really only the rich who can afford to travel slowly,” Mr Brancker said. "The ‘little man’ and his family are not only our main customers now. but will form an increasing proportion of the 113 million international passengers due to be carried by the airlines in the five year period from 1957 to 1961 inclusive,” said Mr Brancker. “They cannot afford the time to travel any other way. Speed has particular significance for them—and it is speed as well as capacity which is going to increase so markedly during the next few years. It is a double process. Not only will the greatly increased capacity made available by the new jet aircraft make it necessary for the airlines to go lower in the economic pyramid to find an expanded market, but the lower fares and higher speed offered will of themselves attract a market which is ready and waiting—provided that there is somewhere attractive to go.” Mr Branckcr emphasised that the majority of the “little men” passengers will never have travelled before, and will require special treatment and special consideration from travel organisations. "They do not want luxury, but they do want a feeling of welcome and security, and standards to which they arc accustomed,” he said. Emphasising the need to improve and expand facilities for those tourists, Mr Brancker said: "If you invited a guest to your house and told him when he arrived that you wore sorry, but there was no bed available for him. you would soon lose your reputation as a host. If you ran a shop and you put a guard on the door and insisted that every customer not only produced a certificate of good conduct, but was also disinfected before he came in you would not get any customers —nor would you deserve them. But some countries still treat their tourist customers in much that way.” "Similarly.” he said, "no-one will really believe that you want visitors if you make then spend a day gelling a visa—something which costs time as well as money.” Mr Branckcr said that extended and tedious formalities and inconveniences at airports, besides irritating passengers, increased

expenses for the airlines. Badly designed terminal buildings which require the use of large numbers of staff serve to increase the costs of carriage; delays caused by inadequate building and facilities and indifferent navigational aids add further to airline costs, as do high landing fees.

“If you want lower fares—and I think we all do—then the governments must play their part as well as the air carriers. After all, we are not looking for charity—only efficiency.”