Edgerton World Travel merges with Ambassador

FORT COLLINS – Another travel agency has fallen victim to the airlines’ decision to once again lower commissions paid to agents for airline ticket sales.

Edgerton World Travel has merged with Ambassador Travel American Express, and the resulting entity will operate two offices in Fort Collins under the Ambassador name.

After the most recent cut in travel agents’ commissions, Kris Das and her mother, Louise Sluss, owners of Edgerton, sold their business to Ambassador.

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“We had a wonderful business for 30 years,” she said. “Everything was great until February of ’95 when the airlines lowered the 10 percent base commission cap to $50 on domestic flights.”

The airlines made another cut last September, when they lowered agents’ base commission to 8 percent, and three weeks ago, a cap of $100 was placed on commissions for round-trip, international airline tickets.

“Over the past three years, our industry has suffered a 40 percent reduction in income,” Das said.

The airlines cite a need to reduce costs, but Das said the cuts are attributable to the airlines’ new emphasis on ticket purchases via the Internet.

“It’s a pity, because it takes the objectivity and competition for the best price out of ticket sales,” she said.

Das and two other agents will move over to Ambassador’s new location in the new Steele’s Market at the Centre for Advanced Technology on Drake Road. Sluss will retire.

The Ambassador travel agencies have operated out of Steele’s Markets since the early ’90s, said Ambassador general manager Judi Robinson. The agency has an office in the store on Harmony Road and one at the Foothills Parkway location. When the new Steele’s opens during the first week of December, the Foothills location will close, and the agency will move to the new site.

Robinson knew Das as a friend and sought her out as a potential partner.

“As travel agents look toward the future, the way we’ll survive is for good agencies to band together and build more buying power,” she said.

Robinson currently employs 17 agents. The agency recently affiliated with American Express Travel Service Co. to boost it’s volume of business, Robinson said.

In addition to the merger, Robinson plans to build the agency’s tour and cruise business – areas unaffected by commission caps so far.

“Agencies that were heavy into corporate travel are having the most trouble,” she said. “We’re more oriented toward leisure travel.”

The agency has also instituted service fees. A $10 fee was tacked on to each transaction beginning a little more than a year ago, and it has been well-received by customers, Robinson said.

The addition of service fees as a means to recoup lost profits is a growing trend in the travel industry, said James Ashurst, spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents.

“We’re seeing more consolidation in the industry, and more agencies are using fees,” he said.

“It’s a changing market, but it doesn’t spell doom for travel agencies, he said.

“Travel agents still sell 80 percent of all airline tickets, nearly 95 percent of tours and upwards of 95 percent of cruises. They need to redefine their role as that of travel consultant. They can provide a service better than someone can do it themselves.”