ARE YOU AWARE?? Did you know that today, Tuesday 1st July, sees the start of a deregulated travel industry here in Australia? Do you know what this means for the travelling public? From 1987 until the 30th of June 2014, the travel industry in Australia has required travel agents to obtain licences in order to operate legally and to be a member of the Travel Compensation Fund in order to provide consumer protection against the insolvency of Australian-based travel agents. In short, there was a level of protection for travel consumers in the event of an Australian travel agent going “belly up”. As of today, the requirement for licencing has been abolished and the Travel Compensation Fund has been dissolved. You should be aware that this has opened the door for all kinds of travel businesses to be started up by all kinds of people (and not necessarily ones with industry experience and expertise, let alone sufficient capital investment and a client trust account operated separately to a travel agents general operational account to provide protection for your money). While a “voluntary accreditation scheme”, ATAS, has been created to provide a code of practice for the industry, consumer protection is being left to individual travel businesses to make their own arrangements for and is not mandatory. Flight Centre are part of ATAS. Please be careful where you book your travel as your money may not be protected. Kind regards The Team at Flight Centre Mt Eliza
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 07:21:59 +0000
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