The disaster of the scale of “Sandy” can't help but capture your attention. The amazing pics, the stories of death and destruction, the (yet to emerge) heartwarming stories of survival.

Bringing it back home, watching the news reports unfold, I was quickly onto the e-mail to everyone in roomsXML to let them know we were about to be inundated…

Whilst it is yet to be quite the impact of “Ash Cloud” (where we saw up to 25% of our bookings for that period across Europe cancelled ) “Sandy” has kept the roomsXML phone’s busy.  So we are working extra hard to ensure travel agents are supported.

Typically the sorts of issues we are hearing about include:

• aflight cancelled
• all of the  flights got cancelled
• the hotel  is now shut
• pax could not call anyone and the hotel have treated it like a no show

The list goes on.  At time of writing this article it continues to go on.

We started reading numerous accounts of the way travel agents around the world are working around the clock, frantically reorganising itineraries, trying to book flights/boats/buses/trains or even cars to minimise the impact on their travelers.

Already we are starting to deal with tired and frustrated agents who have been working to keep their customers happy, so we are doing our best to support them and keep them happy.

Consider those people who booked through an online travel agency.  This significant disadvantage they have in bypassing travel agencies include:

• They simply don't have a person to look after them
• customer service e-mails are overloaded
• the company may in fact be offshore
• the fine print of the booking may already say “ once you have booked this, bad luck”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with travel agents reminding their potential customers,  who walk in and speak about research on  the Internet, that without a travel agent, especially in times like Sandy, you are on your own.