Small travel agents support savings plan
JAKARTA (JP): A number of small and medium-scale travel agents said here yesterday that the Plan Save-5 savings scheme introduced by the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (Asita) has not affected their international air ticketing business.
Plan Save-5 is a plan set by Asita which requires its members to save five percentage points of the nine percent commission provided by airlines.
Squabbles about Plan Save-5 intensified after the scheme was implemented in November 1993, with some travel agents in favor and others opposed. The controversy resurfaced last month when the International Air Transport Association (IATA) raised guarantee funds from 40 percent to 120 percent of two-week sales.
Under IATA's new policy, each tour and travel agency is required to provide guarantee funds of a minimum of US$15,000 or 120 percent of its average sales in 15 days. Previously, the guarantee funds were set at only 40 percent of average sales in 15 days. The IATA and Asita agreed earlier that the agencies' deposits under Plan Save-5 may be used to pay for the guarantee funds.
Several agencies complained to the House of Representatives about the sharp increase in the guarantee funds and urged them to halt Plan Save-5.
The parties have also visited IATA's manager in Indonesia, Djuarsa Joedadibrata, who was asked to delay sanctions on any agent failing to pay guarantee funds by early this month.
Asita's chairman, Sri Mulyono Herlambang, has reacted that the association will not suspend the plan, saying, "If there are some objections, let's discuss them at Asita's congress in November."
A travel agency executive, S. Maryono, said here yesterday that Plan Save-5 was actually introduced to prevent price wars between agencies. The five percentage points from commissions must be deposited with the state-owned Bank Bumi Daya, which offers an annual interest rate of seven percent. After two years, 50 percent of the interest on the deposits is paid to the Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board (ITPB), while the other 50 percent may be withdrawn by the depositors.
ITPB's managing director, Wuryastuti Sunario, told The Jakarta Post recently that the board had already received some Rp 1 billion ($441,500) from the plan.
General Manager of Blue Swan Tours and Travel, Sjachrul Firdaus, said yesterday that there were 239 IATA members in Indonesia as of July 1995. "The number was 177 in October 1993, meaning that after the implementation of Plan Save-5, 62 agents have joined IATA," he said, adding that based on data from ASITA, only 14 agents in Jakarta oppose Plan Save-5.
Meanwhile, Djuarsa told the Post yesterday that IATA has not yet decided the schedule for imposing sanctions on agents which fail to provide guarantee funds. (icn)