After providing travel agents with daily supplier updates for over a decade via its AFTA webMAIL, The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) today announced it will end the service effective 5.00pm 28 October 2011.

Given the increase of suppliers distributing information and deals via their own databases AFTA experienced a “sharp drop” in suppliers lodging their data with AFTA webMAIL, the industry body revealed.

The decision to end the service “was not taken lightly”, AFTA chief executive Jayson Westbury said.

“Unfortunately, as the use of the service has reduced and the operating costs have increased, it is no longer viable to continue with AFTA webMAIL.”

e-Travel Blackboard spoke with a number of travel agents, some preparing to mourn the loss of the “convenient deal file”.

“We get inundated with emails and I usually just delete the majority of them – except webMAIL (although, to be honest, I rarely read it every day),” a Melbourne agent said.

Other agents, however, told e-Travel Blackboard that webMAIL was just another email to be deleted.

“If I want information, I can find it when I need it,” a Sydney agent said.

AFTA’s current suppliers were advised of the impending closure of AFTA webMAIL yesterday and the late October closure date was set to allow suppliers to advise agency partners how they will be disseminating their information in the future.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory notices will continue to be communicated via a new format to be announced in October, a statement from AFTA read.

For more information on how AFTA will continue to serve the industry, go to www.afta.com.au.