What Software Solutions Does An Online Travel Agency Need?
The concept of travel agencies is nothing new. Agents have been aiding in making the travelling experience smoother for travellers for a long time now. But with time, brick and mortar agencies have become more and more irrelevant while online travel agencies continue to shine.
But there’s a lot going on behind an online travel agency that our eyes don’t see. The whole management of the procedure is a lot of work. The system must manage both parties and ensure maximum efficiency at the same time.
In this post, we’ll take a somewhat detailed look at how an online travel agency operates. What is the software it needs? How do they work? Let’s jump right in.
Types of Software Used by Online Travel Agencies
Online travel agencies now offer a 360-degree approach for consumers. As a consumer, you can book flights, hotels, rental cars, and anything and everything that you might need for your travel. Covering such a wide spectrum of services is not possible with a single standalone system. That’s why online travel agencies rely on different software solutions that help make the process streamlined.
Booking Services
Let’s start with the heart of the system. The booking features. It’s the most important and the most used feature for any online travel agency. Whatever a customer wants to do on his/her trip, it’s mandatory to book the services first.
Booking services implemented by online travel agencies offer a personal touch to the shopping experience of the customer. Most integrated systems are powered by AI so that the system software has a clear understanding of what the customers prefer.
A customer can book hotels, flights, cars, etc. on the go and pay for them directly without ever coming in contact with a travel agent. This process is very smartly handled by software solutions so that the customers feel more connected to their itinerary.
These software usually offer multiple currency support, language support, automatic confirmation, payments, and so on. The booking software usually have other software integrated within and work as a whole.
The main touchpoints are very carefully handled in such systems as these are very important to keep in check, for both the customers and the agents. The APIs are connected directly to the vendor websites so that the customers are always displayed with up-to-date information.
Itinerary Management
In travel terms, an itinerary means the overall package a customer gets from the travel agents. It includes flights, hotels, rentals, and other ancillary services. Believe it or not, it’s one of the most hectic and inefficient processes of the whole travelling aspect.
Building a tour requires up-to-date flight information, ticket purchasing, booking, planning, etc. All of these aspects vary from location to location as well. So, there is no way that an online travel agency can chalk up an itinerary and go about it.
That’s where the GDS comes into place. A GDS is a Global Distribution System run by system aggregators. On the online agent side, there is a CRS or a Central Reservation System. Both of these systems are integrated to work in harmony. The online travel agencies input data from the CRS, and the GDS handles the queries.
Airlines or other vendors have access to these channels where they are allowed to update ticket prices, hotel prices, availability, etc. So, all of the parties involved are always on top of what’s happening. As a result, the chances of a mishap happening reduces significantly.
All of these amazing features are used via a travel portal that is used as the user interface for the online travel agents. These portals come with booking engines that can cover flights, hotels, car rentals, sightseeing or any other activity. Using these portals is relatively easy and saves a lot of time for the agents as they don’t have to create the itinerary manually.
However, a channel manager is a guide that drives the best sales for the agents. Channel managers are responsible for checking and comparing multiple booking engines ran by vendors. They then come up with the best deals that the agents can offer their clients. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Time is money in the commercial travel space, literally. The faster online travel agents can address customer queries and complete bookings, the more likely they are to get repeated sales. Everything is dependent on customer convenience. And time.
As time is going by, computing solutions are getting better and better. These platforms have options for travel agencies to highlight a feature or a price, update and modify the services and quickly return to the customers.
Also, the communication channels are often automated. For example, the reservation confirmation email is automatically sent to the customer as soon as he/she makes a reservation.
This type of functionality is the primary driving force behind the online travel agencies now. Hooking a new customer has become a game of timing and convenience. The better and the faster you are, the higher chance you have to build a larger customer base as an online travel agent.
Accounting Software
The primary goal of any industry is to make profits, right? The same goes for the travel industry and online travel agents. With the automation of travel agencies, customers now can pay directly while making a reservation.
That’s where accounting software comes into play. Such a software is created in a way that it integrates with any existing system seamlessly. While most of the booking software come with some sort of billing features, if you want to take thing a step higher, it’s best to invest in accounting software.
Also, organizing invoices, billing information, and keeping track of all the transactions happening is a massive factor for online travel agents. Doing these things manually is almost impossible in this modern age. So, an accounting software works as the lifesaver.
If a good accounting software is integrated with the booking system, lives become a lot easier for the travel agents as all of the invoices will be generated automatically as the customers decide to reserve. Also, most accounting portals accept all major payment methods like cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets.
The primary factor that drives the profit of an online travel agency is keeping track of the finances. It’s one of the obvious but one of the hardest jobs as well. Integrating an accounting software can address all these issues while maintaining and tracking the financial health of the travel agency.
Customer Relation Management & Marketing Tools
The use of CRMs is becoming more and more mainstream every year. It’s true for the travel industry as well. CRMs are designed in a way that it automatically generates the leads and store necessary information on the customer to use it smartly in the future.
The best thing about having a CRM as an online travel agent is access to data. These solutions store the data input by the customer for future references. Hence, CRMs are great for analyzing customer behaviour and identifying the most loyal ones. Rewarding loyalty is one of the best things you can do for your customers as an online travel agent.
These factors can result in a boost in your marketing as well. The more you make your customers happy, the more positive exposure awaits you. Also, with the data the CRM gives to you, you can curate and craft top of the line marketing campaign that will actually generate even more leads for your agency. And those will be automatically addressed by the CRM as well.
Some of these tools come with options where can you can share content over your social media channels automatically. Some allow you to run email campaigns where you can connect with the customers on a personal level. Anything and everything is possible in the world of customer relationship management.
Take Away
The software solutions and the feature that we mentioned here are fundamental to any online travel agencies. Online travel agents are taking over the booking paradigm and it’s for valid reasons. The customers are getting busier by the day and everyone is migrating to online.
Apart from the features we covered, there are a plethora of features that you can integrate into your system. The more you add, the more convenient it will get for you. Some of these features can include reporting of the data, performance management of the employee, technical support for the customers like live chat, ERP solutions and so on.
The bottom line is that the possibilities are endless when it comes to software solutions for online travel agencies.