Revealed this morning as the headline announcement at the inaugural Beyond Borders Travel Summit in Sydney, the ATAS branding will be updated to ‘ATIA accredited’, a move that ATIA CEO Dean Long said would take the gold standard of travel accreditation toward a single, recognisable identify.
“The single brand transition… is more than just a rebranding, it is about creating a seamless and trusted travel ecosystem that benefits the entire travel community,” Long said.
“This move will allow us to engage more effectively with consumers and build long-term trust, ensuring that our members remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market,” he added.
Speaking with Travel Daily in the lead-up to the formal announcement, Long explained that 10 years ago it made sense to have two brands, but makes less sense in today’s market with all of the media exposure and advocacy that the industry body is doing under the ATIA brand.
“To not have the members benefit from having that investment that we are making every week in above-the-line commentary in the media…it really didn’t make much sense to continue a two-brand strategy.”
Long stressed that the brand pivot in no way means ATIA is retiring the ATAS program.
“The program of ATAS will continue to be evolved, the code of conduct will still be in play, we will still be rejecting 25% that want to join, we will be maintaining those standards, but the brand will be ATIA Accredited,” Long explained.
The ATAS announcement forms part of a new five-year strategy across the member services and accreditations pillars, and more broadly under a new long-term ATIA strategy, Project A30.
Changes to ATAS arrive just over a year after ATIA changed its central branding from the Australian Federation of Travel Agents.
Meanwhile, ATIA also announced at Beyond Borders its plans to launch insolvency protection on Friday morning.
The new program, unnamed at present, aims to plug a gap left by the dissolution of the Travel Compensation Fund (TCF) in 2014 as part of the government deregulation of the industry.
Travel Daily understands talks are underway and at various stages with a number of underwriters, with the scheme aiming to be operational in time for ATIA’s 2026 fiscal year, which begins on 01 Apr.
Following the closure of the TCF, which was met at the time with mixed reactions from the industry, some retail consortia have since moved to set up trusts and other insurance schemes to safeguard client funds in the event of end-supplier failure. Among these is TravelManagers’ own Travel Compensation Fund, which was introduced two years ago.
ATIA Chief Executive Dean Long told TD the association will be engaging heavily with members over the coming year “to get that coverage right”.
“That’s been something I think large parts of the industry have been calling for the association to be doing for a number of years.
“In establishing the ATAS Advisory Committee and bringing in new voices to that space; and in getting new Directors onto the Board, it became very clear there was a common risk that probably did need an industry-based solution best done at a market level, not a commercial level.”
Long added there were a lot of learnings from the ATIA chargeback scheme that was in operation prior to COVID, giving the association good experience in setting up a similar program.
“It will mean that people who book with one of the 1,700 members we have around the country…can have a higher level of confidence – whether that be with a tour operator, an agent, a corporate or an online agent.
“Adding some protections in there will add consumer confidence and trade awareness that what we’re doing is true value for them.”
The scheme, once operational, will solely cover ATIA-accredited agents and suppliers, while airlines and businesses with no Australian presence will be excluded.
In coming years, ATIA said it may look into offering insolvency protection to other parts of the travel industry not eligible for ATIA accreditation.
Long said it was critical the right people were around the table to co-design the right outcome, with ATIA eager to learn and leverage from the TravelManagers TCF as a good model worth studying.
“It’s a great program,” Long said, “and that’s one of the things TravelManagers have been vocal on from the day of deregulation”. “That they wanted this type of protection – they took it by the horns and developed something that works well for their business.
“So they’ll have some lessons, as we’ll have lessons from running a chargeback scheme, and as long as we can improve that collective value, that’s what it’s about.”
