Kuala Lumpur - Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) will end its relationship with Mitra Tours & Travel, its partner of several years, when the agreement lapses at the end of the year.
It has linked up with Holiday Tours & Travel, which has ceased its 16-month association with TQ3 Travel Solutions. CWT could not be reached for comment.
At press time Mitra’s group president, Tunku Iskandar, said Mitra was in discussion with three global TMCs to forge a new partnership. He declined further comment.
Holiday Tours managing director, Mr Thomas Chong, confirmed it was now an associate of CWT. The agency has begun to replace TQ3 signage at its offices with those of CWT.
A source speculated the reason for Holiday Tour’s shift might be that TQ3 was a relatively new global TMC compared with CWT, which had a bigger international network, especially in Asia-Pacific. There is also the likelihood that CWT accounts will be migrated to Holiday Tours,” the source said.
Diethelm Travel Management managing director, Mr Manfred Kurz, observed: “It is obvious that Carlson and Holiday Tours were looking for stronger partners and found them.
This is normal business practice, not confined to the travel industry. An existing contract can be terminated in three months.”
There was no guarantee all CWT’s accounts at Mitra would migrate to Holiday Tours. “If it is doing a good job and the multinational corporation’s business is being handled properly, there will be no reason to change. This was our experience when we lost our partnership with Rosenbluth. Many of our accounts stayed with us and did not migrate to Amex,” Mr Kurz said.
“With globalisation, more corporate customers are requesting a global link and local TMCs realise they cannot work on their own. As a result, more of them will be seeking links with global TMCs. More of them should be coming into Malaysia,” he added.
Sime Darby Travel/BTI Malaysia general manager, Ms Margaret Mah, agreed: “If you have no global association, a multinational will not even invite you to tender
for an account. However, global TMCs will be very selective of their local partner because Malaysia is not considered a primary market. Decision making is still done in the head office or elsewhere in the region and not in Malaysia.”
On the flip side, Mr Kurz said: “You can be out of the network very easily at short notice. Global TMCs will merge to gain stronger bargaining power (such as Amex and Rosenbluth). When this happens the victim will be smaller partner of the network.”
There are ways to prevent this. “To be on the safe side, a local TMC can have a joint-venture with a global TMC by allowing the latter to take a stake in it. However, this could mean having to use the global TMC’s name and losing your local identity,” Mr Kurz said.
