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PVOA replies to licensing attack
Page 34
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• Cosmos managing director, Mr W. H. Jones, who attacked the system of road service licensing (CM June 8), himself came under attack when this week the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association issued a statement condemning his views.
In the statement, Mr Denis Quin, director of the PVOA, says that Association could only conclude that Mr Jones' objective was to knock all his competitors — and, more surprisingly those with whom he wished to do business — at the British holiday resorts.
The PVOA, states Mr Quin, does not pretend that the present licensing system is perfect and the Association has for some years been seeking necessary streamlining of road service licensing procedures. However, the system is right in essence and works in the public interest. The system does not stifle competition and this was indicated, states Mr Quin, in a typical quotation from a recent Traffic Commissioners' report: "The excursion and tours market continues to be extremely competitive and applications in the main have been in respect of additional destinations in order to give greater variety."
The PVOA statement says the Commissioners can also be critical of operators and have listed the failure of a number of excursions and tour projects for commercial or practical reasons — another report comments "It has, therefore, been a bad year for gimmicks."
Mr Jones would says Mr Quin, be well advised to concentrate on seeking to prove that his tours will, in the widest context, be in the public interest.
The PVOA feels the Cosmos attack can be interpreted as a political act to influence what Mr Jones himself says is, "in effect, a political decision" which the Secretary of State will make on the appeal.
Continues Mr Quin's statement: "Mr Jones also claimed that Cosmos could obtain hotel accommodation in Britain some 30 per cent cheaper than other tour operators. How does he reconcile this with his complaint of seedy and rundown hotels?
"Unfortunately, the boom in hotel building has not (as revealed by British Tourist Authority statistics) generally been of a type or in locations suitable for coach tours. Tour accommodation remains a sellers' market and Cosmos should not delude themselves that hoteliers will wish to relinquish more remunerative business in favour of their tours. Cosmos tourists will get what they pay £3.23 for — and no more.
"Numbers carried on European air /coach and rail /coach holidays are no argument for — let alone proof of — ability to meet a public need for coach tours in the UK. The two markets are just not comparable, as the travel industry well knows.
"It is admitted that the established coach tour operators do not have the advantage of a foreign-owned company in arranging Continental tours, but, however Cosmos' numbers may have risen, their competition has hardly been seen to affect Continental coach tours. This market may suffer minor fluctuations, but the demand for international documentation for coaches (of which PVOA is the issuing body) continues to soar year by year. Cosmos do not have coach tours originating in this country, so PVOA has no knowledge of their figures. It only knows that, far from Cosmos having run Continental coach tour operators off the road, these tours continue to attract growing numbers of holidaymakers.
"These points from Mr Jones' speech serve only to put in perspective the criticisms of an unsuccessful applicant (at a time when its carrier's case is under appeal) regarding a system of licensing which has successfully protected coaching from the disasters which regularly occur in the more speculative sectors of the travel industry." (See also Letters, page 54).