Many good independent agents have not only survived since the onslaught of the world wide web, but they have grown stronger – embracing all channels of distribution including online.

I put this down to good old-fashioned customer service. It doesn’t matter whether you are an online travel agent or a high street travel agent. At the end of the day it’s about repeat customers.

Very often the technology just does not work for the customer – every OTA knows their abandoned cart rate and for most it isn’t great. Every missed opportunity for a sale can be put down to not satisfying the customer needs – and that applies online or offline.

It is true that it’s harder to convert online, but it is relative and their loss is someone else’s gain. I have been talking to colleagues in the industry and they tell me that many of their customers who have booked or tried to book online in previous years are coming back to book with them. It seems many of our customers have been there, tried it and the fruit was not that sweet.

There have also been many horror stories about travellers left high and dry without anyone to turn to after booking online. Consumer organisations have also, quite rightly, championed the plight of the unfortunate traveller who has been allegedly ripped off with hidden charges and how the price you see is not the price you necessarily pay. This of course is bad for the whole industry – we need transparency and the trust of our customers whether we are online, offline, Atol licensed or not. One bad egg will tarnish us all and there will be no winners – especially not the customer.

Interestingly, at Barrhead we find that many of our customers have researched online but they still want the expertise, competence, financial security and reassurance of a good travel agent.

I also believe that in many instances there is so much information and so many online options that consumers need an expert to make sense of it all. We will always embrace the internet, but all the reviews and social networks cannot make up for a travel consultant’s expertise to cut through the fiction and get to the facts. The internet has little loyalty so repeat customers are harder to achieve – a good travel agent relies on satisfied customers and repeat business.

Sharon Munro is chief operating officer of Barrhead Travel.