WA SHEARINGS has attacked agents accusing them of reluctance to promoting coach tours and has hit back by launching a new range of exciting tours for the more adventurous traveller.

WA Shearings, who sells around 90 per cent of its holidays through retail agents, claims that the agents are not doing enough to promote coach holidays.

"Many people in the trade don't know anything about coach holidays, they know more about Koh Samui than the UK," argues WA Shearings sales and marketing director, Karen Gee.

"Retailers have got a problem on the marketing and commercial side. I don't think they've fully grasped the situation," continues Gee.

WA Shearings also blames younger travel agent sales staff who it says have no interest in coach holidays and make little effort to promote them.

The company is currently planning a media advertising campaign to promote its new holidays. These include a tour around Ayres Rock in Australia on a Harley Davidson and a Grand New Zealand Rail trip with stopovers in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.

UKINBOUND says that UK tourism could be facing a challenging immediate future, with the fallout of July’s London bombings and the continued threat amounting to just one of the problems.

July’s visitor arrivals fell by 7.4 per cent compared to a year ago and although August’s inbound tourism figures have yet to be compiled, UKinbound chief executive Stephen Dowd is less than optimistic about the result, and believes that the effect of the terrorist attacks will continue into the autumn.

“Many consumers continue to defer travelling to the UK,” says Dowd. “We now have a difficult and delicate task in attracting these potential visitors back to the UK in the face of continued media coverage and political grandstanding both at home and abroad.”

Dowd has warned that the threat of bombs is not the UK’s only problem.

“The inexorable rise in oil prices, greatly exacerbated by hurricane Katrina has added cost into every part of the tourism supply chain and is eroding our competitiveness, putting severe pressure on prices."

A CONSULTATION paper regarding developmental policies for the rights of coach passengers on scheduled international coach journeys has been published by the European Commission, with CPT warning that if legislation is passed it could also be applied to domestic services.

The EC is consulting on: passengers with reduced mobility; liability and insurance; compensation for denied boarding, delays and cancellation; information for passengers and integrated ticketing.

"Although I have been assured by officials that at present the concept will only apply to international scheduled journeys, we have to be prepared for the possibility that once any proposals reach the European parliament, then MEPs could insist they apply to domestic services as well, just as they do for the airline industry," says David Watson, CPT's director of parliamentary and community relations, European Union.

CPT's prime fears lay with compensation for denied boarding, delays and cancellation, arguing that some contributory factors, such as delays at international frontiers, are beyond the control of coach operators.