SIR: Anyone watching television recently and the plethora of travel shows and consumer programmes which love to use the travel industry as the latest victim for scandalmongering would think that travel agents are nothing but lying, cheating, conniving low lives who would sell their souls for a holiday sale. "Do not buy holiday insurance from them - you can buy it cheaper elsewhere. Do not book holidays without consulting Teletext - it is cheaper. They don't tell you about the weather, they will not tell you about building works, they have books called Truth Guides but they won't let you read them ...."

It might surprise the likes of Watchdog's Anne Robinson or the representatives of "Holiday Which" that many travel agents find this attitude extremely objectionable and insulting as it is unrepresentative of the industry as a whole.

These programmes are hardly the leading edge of investigative journalism as they are often poorly researched, sensationalistic and far removed from reality. Yes, there are odd back street shabby travel agents or tour operators where customers are badly served but these are most often those very same 'cheap' outlets recommended by the programmes!

In reality there are still thousands of customers who prefer to deal with a friendly, efficient, experienced, caring travel consultant rather than a faceless computer or an unknown, unseen, cheap bucket shop where accountability is unknown. It is also true that not everyone actually wants the cheapest, discounted deal around as many appreciate that good service is worth paying for.

Working in a travel agency is hard work as members of my 50 staff will testify. A lunch break is a rarity and hometime at 5.30 unusual but all this is worthwhile when customers say "You had all the time in the world for us," and, of course, come back for more. We have won several awards for our service and customer care culminating only recently in winning the North West Travel Agent of the Year Award. These accolades do not just arrive but are the result of an on going in-house training scheme which is the envy of our competitors.

We, like many other locally based travel agents, are proud of the service we provide and take extreme exception to the continuing bad publicity given by those television programmes which masquerade as being in the public interest, but in fact are turning true journalism into little more than game shows.

Andrew Dickson F INST TT FTS,

Managing Director,

St Andrews Travel Group, Bolton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.