Agents are demanding an investigation into brochure bank BP Travel Marketing, after being left without supplies for months.
The problem seems to be particularly bad in the northwest of England, although agents in Devon and Oxfordshire have also complained that brochures they’ve ordered have failed to arrive.
Agent Richard Slater of Henbury Travel in Macclesfield said that, until he complained to BP via Travel Gossip, he hadn’t received a single delivery since April.
“Where are all the brochures? Why are operators not kicking off? They’ve paid to print those brochures that are just sitting in a warehouse somewhere,” he said.
Richard, who is ABTA Northwest Chair, said none of the orders he has placed had arrived via BP’s couriers. The only regular deliveries he has received are from Jet2, which sends them via courier. “It has been a nightmare,” he added.
After Richard complained about BP on Travel Gossip’s Facebook Group, BP Head of Sales Tom Bullen arranged a delivery of a limited supply of brochures via DHL. “Prior to that, when both myself and Hays – which is close by – complained directly to BP they sent four or five of each brochure by DHL, but that was it,” he said.
Richard said he’s now concerned that when BP does deliver a large batch, they’ll be out of date and agents will be landed with the disposal costs. “We have to pay £15 for every wheelie bin load at our tip, so I’m going to go through any deliveries and refuse to take any old brochures.”
Andy Riley, of Preston-based Pillinger World Travel, also called for an investigation of BP, adding: “If I was a tour operator, I wouldn’t be letting them distribute anything of my product. A lot of talk about sustainability at the moment, I wonder how many brochures have sat there or gone to waste,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s brochures that sell product, especially with our local customers.”
Andy said BP’s Tradegate website is also an issue, since it doesn’t allow agents to choose the number of brochures they require, only allowing them to order one copy from some operators, and its email communications with agents are confusing.
“We’ve had brochures not get delivered multiple times,” said Andy. “The website is so poor. When I try and speak to Tradegate, I’m on hold for ages and once I got told the ‘brochures were stuck in their depot’. I’m not entirely sure what means.”
In a message posted on TG’s Facebook group in response to complaints, Tom, of BP Travel Marketing said: “As background, we typically receive in excess of 50-60,000 requests for brochures each month and deliver in the region of 500,000 copies to Agents/Homeworkers up and down the country so from time to time some deliveries will go wrong.
“This could be for a variety of reasons ranging from problems with machinery in our warehouses preventing us being able to pick the brochures, mechanical issues with our vehicles when delivering, traffic problems such as accidents, roadworks causing delays meaning we miss our required delivery window or even high street access due to local council rules, events etc that we are not aware of.”
One Lancashire agent said they hadn’t received any brochures since pre-COVID, despite placing orders, another in the northwest said they received brochures they’d never ordered, from operators they don’t sell; a Tyneside agent said a consignment had been left on the pavement opposite their shop, and one agent based in the Newcastle area said they’d waited two months for brochures that the delivery driver said had been ‘sat in the warehouse because no-one wanted to deliver them as there was a lot’.
BP’s parent company Menzies Distribution was acquired this month by InPost, which previously had a minority stake in the business. Travel Gossip has approached BP for a comment.
The post Agents demand investigation into brochure delivery firm appeared first on Travel Gossip.
Continue reading...
The problem seems to be particularly bad in the northwest of England, although agents in Devon and Oxfordshire have also complained that brochures they’ve ordered have failed to arrive.
Agent Richard Slater of Henbury Travel in Macclesfield said that, until he complained to BP via Travel Gossip, he hadn’t received a single delivery since April.
“Where are all the brochures? Why are operators not kicking off? They’ve paid to print those brochures that are just sitting in a warehouse somewhere,” he said.
Richard, who is ABTA Northwest Chair, said none of the orders he has placed had arrived via BP’s couriers. The only regular deliveries he has received are from Jet2, which sends them via courier. “It has been a nightmare,” he added.
After Richard complained about BP on Travel Gossip’s Facebook Group, BP Head of Sales Tom Bullen arranged a delivery of a limited supply of brochures via DHL. “Prior to that, when both myself and Hays – which is close by – complained directly to BP they sent four or five of each brochure by DHL, but that was it,” he said.
Richard said he’s now concerned that when BP does deliver a large batch, they’ll be out of date and agents will be landed with the disposal costs. “We have to pay £15 for every wheelie bin load at our tip, so I’m going to go through any deliveries and refuse to take any old brochures.”
Andy Riley, of Preston-based Pillinger World Travel, also called for an investigation of BP, adding: “If I was a tour operator, I wouldn’t be letting them distribute anything of my product. A lot of talk about sustainability at the moment, I wonder how many brochures have sat there or gone to waste,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s brochures that sell product, especially with our local customers.”
Andy said BP’s Tradegate website is also an issue, since it doesn’t allow agents to choose the number of brochures they require, only allowing them to order one copy from some operators, and its email communications with agents are confusing.
“We’ve had brochures not get delivered multiple times,” said Andy. “The website is so poor. When I try and speak to Tradegate, I’m on hold for ages and once I got told the ‘brochures were stuck in their depot’. I’m not entirely sure what means.”
In a message posted on TG’s Facebook group in response to complaints, Tom, of BP Travel Marketing said: “As background, we typically receive in excess of 50-60,000 requests for brochures each month and deliver in the region of 500,000 copies to Agents/Homeworkers up and down the country so from time to time some deliveries will go wrong.
“This could be for a variety of reasons ranging from problems with machinery in our warehouses preventing us being able to pick the brochures, mechanical issues with our vehicles when delivering, traffic problems such as accidents, roadworks causing delays meaning we miss our required delivery window or even high street access due to local council rules, events etc that we are not aware of.”
One Lancashire agent said they hadn’t received any brochures since pre-COVID, despite placing orders, another in the northwest said they received brochures they’d never ordered, from operators they don’t sell; a Tyneside agent said a consignment had been left on the pavement opposite their shop, and one agent based in the Newcastle area said they’d waited two months for brochures that the delivery driver said had been ‘sat in the warehouse because no-one wanted to deliver them as there was a lot’.
BP’s parent company Menzies Distribution was acquired this month by InPost, which previously had a minority stake in the business. Travel Gossip has approached BP for a comment.
The post Agents demand investigation into brochure delivery firm appeared first on Travel Gossip.
Continue reading...
