travel tech insights

To the public eye travel is a straightforward concept focused on destinations, activities, tickets and itineraries. For those who work in the travel industry it’s always been a complicated set of interrelationships between retailers, wholesalers and service providers – made, if anything, even more challenging by the global reach of the Internet. Two of the more visible ways the Internet has changed the travel are: 1) raised customer expectations for a unique and amazing travel experience; 2) price transparency – customers can book much of their travel directly online, or have travel plans in mind and quotes in hand before the first conversation with atravel agent. 

Whether you’re a travel agency, a tour operator or a travel management company, you face the challenge of a changing travel market and the sobering reality that your competition is not standing still. In order to grow, your company has to aggressively find new product and service opportunities, adjust quickly to changing economic conditions and stay ahead of competitor strategies. The travel industry is complex and no single operational dimension will be the deciding factor for how well these challenges are met, but certainly a company’s software system will play a major role.

In a recent blog we discussed how travel companies can derive benefits from Big Data, analytics and advanced reports in four operational areas:  

As noted in an earlier post, there are compelling reasons for travel companies to invest in enterprise resource planning systems. These range from a desire to cut operational costs through automation; be able to exchange data with travel partners more quickly and easily; increase revenues with better visibility into sales activities; and improve customer experiences with more sales and transaction automation. However, achieving these benefits is only possible if a wise choice is made. Since good advice is often overlooked or quickly forgotten, this post aims to make a more lasting impact by focusing on steps guaranteed to produce what no one wants: a disastrous selection.

The question isn’t whether or not your travel agency has workflow problems - because every agency has room for improvement in this area. The question addresses: what are your travel agency workflow problems; are they serious or minor; if serious, are they urgent or deferrable; if urgent, how are they impacting the organization – and how should they be prioritized and addressed?