The Future of the Package Holiday

The BBC have been talking about the future of the Package Holiday. For me, it's simple: they need to evolve. We consumers don't need package holidays any more, because we can book our own flights, transfers and accommodation. We get what we want without the ditsy rep. who makes things more difficult than they need to be.

I'd *love* to go on a package holiday where I show up at the airport, someone takes my bags and checks them in for me. I then wander through the airport, get on the plane, arrive at the other end, and then simply leave the airport and get on a bus (or whatever) before being dropped off at my accommodation. Someone does all the baggage reclaim, deals with lost luggage, carries it all and then drops it off where I'm staying.

On the way home, I'd like to be picked up from my accommodation (with someone picking up my luggage), and then transported as quickly as possible to my home (or home airport). I don't want to have to check in, I don't want to have to do baggage reclaim, and I don't want to wait around in the airport any longer than absolutely necessary.

All this takes a lot of organising. It's not going to be easy to arrange check-in procedures that mean the passenger doesn't have to queue up at some stupid desk in some poxy airport. Even scheduling all the transfers so that no one's waiting around at hell-hole airports at 2am or whatever is going to be very hard.

Very hard: Stuff the average consumer can't do, no matter how clever the Internet gets. It's here that the Package Holiday can become a contender once again.

Submitted by coofercat on Thu, 2006-12-07 09:02