Travel agents upset after address cut

Press, 7 October 1980, Page 26

Travel agents upset after address cut

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor

The Travel Agents’ Association is far from happy with the Secretary for Transport (Mr A. J. Edwards) for releasing to the press part of an address he failed to read to delegates at their conference in Invercargill last week. Mr Edwards’s paper on Wednesday contained his thoughts on the Govern* ment’s International Air Tariff Regulations, including a warning that some promo-tional-type fares still available in New Zealand for overseas flights would be either increased or withdrawn if agents abused the act. The paper also contained a veiled threat that .anyone

caught breaching the act would be prosecuted. At the conference on Wednesday, however, Mr Edwards cut short his paper and deleted all reference to the regulations. Later, after an approach by reporters who had copies of the full text, Mr Edwards agreed to the release of the section he did not read. (This was printed on page 6 of “The Press” of Thursday).

Delegates who saw the report in the newspaper were annoyed that Mr Edwards “did not have the guts” to present his views to the conference. The association’s executive director (Mr P. J. Lowry) confirmed that the board was unhappy about Mr Edwards’s action. “I wish he had read it all — it was something we wanted to hear,” he said.