Flight Booking Engines Need Content And Features

As online travel technology solutions continue to advance, more and more people are using some type of Flight Booking Engine to research and book their air travel arrangements. Whether looking to just book airline tickets for a business trip, to visit friends or the annual family vacation, there are online air booking engines available that can help guide just about anyone through the entire research and booking process.

There are countless airline reservation systems and booking engines in the market today. A little research up front about the options available will save you a lot of time and aggravation in the long term when choosing the best application for your business. There are airline booking systems designed to meet the requirements of just about anyone selling travel online, finding the one with the right combination of content sources, price and product features for your business is the key to success.

It is always a good idea to start with evaluating the way you currently make airline bookings and identify any improvements that can be made there. Is your business operating as efficiently as it could when making airline reservations? Is your product priced competitively and easily available for your clients to book? Has your technology kept pace with your competitors?

As consumers continue to shift just about all their purchases to online sales, you may want to make sure your online booking engine is mobile ready so you can avoid the need to develop a separate, expensive dedicated Mobile APP in the future. For this you will want to make sure the Flight Booking Engine you choose is uses responsive technology that will automatically adjust the screen size based on the type of device being used.

Next, consider how your customers like to research and book their airline reservations. Whether your customer prefer to research and book their flight arrangements online or speak with an experienced travel professional, a Flight Booking Engine should be designed to make it quick and easy to use for travel agents and customers alike. The application should be a simple design that does not require the user to input or remember complicated GDS formats. Researching and booking an airline ticket online today should be as easy as just a few clicks of the mouse.

Access to live pricing and availability is key in order to ensure your customers are being provided the most accurate and up to date information available. Access to the best content and price can be critical in today's price driven marketplace, so an airline booking engine that can simultaneously search multiple content sources live for the best price can be extremely valuable feature to have.

You will also want to ensure that any application you choose provides the business management tools that you will need to properly control and manage your business. At a minimum you'll need the ability to adjust the selling price as well as offer targeted sales promotions or include "value adds" to customers using your services.

Identifying the right combination of content sources and product features for your Flight Booking Engine can be a critical decision, finding the right technology partner can be just as important.

Consider A New Hotel Booking Engine for The New Year

The Holiday season is the time of year when we look back at all that has happened during the past year. We consider the high points along with the low points as we reminisce about our success and perhaps moan about where we might have fallen short or experienced failure. It is also the time of the year when we make those new year resolutions to improve ourselves and our personal lives. We sign up for Gym memberships to get ourselves in better physical shape, enroll in educational courses to learn a new language or how to cook that perfect meal. Some even take the opportunity to reorganize or redecorate their surroundings while taking down the holiday decorations. The new year provides a sense of a fresh start and is a great time to get things in order and make those some changes to improve our personal lives.

It is also a perfect time to evaluate the way you conduct business and see what improvements can be made there. Is your business operating as efficiently as it could? Are you offering the products and services that your clients are looking for? Has your technology kept pace with your competitors?

First consider whether you are offering to help your clients make all their travel arrangements. If you are selling your client an airline ticket for a quick business trip or a week's long vacation, chances are they are going to need to book a hotel as well. So, access to a hotel reservation system is something you may want to be sure to consider. Check if it includes access to links to media files & rich content to assist with selecting the right hotel property during the shopping process. Make sure the can the application be customized to match the "look and feel" of your company's branding.

Then check to see if you are serving your customers via the channels they prefer. For today's customer on the go, a mobile ready Hotel booking engine is an option you may want to include. Many consumers use different devices as they research and eventually purchase products online. For instance, many start their initial research using their smartphone, but switch to a Laptop to complete the purchase. Others will choose to use their handheld device exclusively. Either way, the hotel reservation system you use needs to be ready to serve these customers on the device they choose.

And lastly, you will not want to overlook how the hotel booking engine you are using has kept pace with the latest developments in technology and allows you to easily expand your business.

If you plan to participate in the Global Marketplace, you'll need a hotel booking engine that can easily handle multiple currencies as well as multiple languages. Look for "state of the art" applications that are flexible & fully scalable and will easily grow with your business.

Identifying a hotel reservation system with right combination of content and product features for your hotel booking engine can be a critical decision for your travel business, finding the right technology partner can be just as important.

The Airline Reservation System Puzzle

An airline's internal systems often come together like huge technology puzzle that tightly fits multiple pieces together to form a complete picture. The applications required to operate an airline are vast to say the least and are required to quickly perform multiple functions. Systems must be accurate and easy to use and may include important functions such as departure control and In Flight systems, passenger reservation systems the distribution of airline schedules and fares. Access to seat & meal selection, interface with frequent flyer programs to access special fares or onboard amenities are all things that need to be considered.

The airline reservation system is one of the most important pieces of an airline's "technology puzzle" and the flexibility for it to interface with an airline's distribution network easily has been a priority for most airlines for years. Many of the older legacy systems used by some airlines quickly became outdated forcing them to migrate to newer and more flexible platforms requiring significant time and resources.

The same is true for many traditional as well as online travel agencies. Having the right airline reservation system can be central to your business. Whether you are selling one of your clients a hotel room for a business trip, a week's vacation at a resort or even a cruise, chances are they are going to need to book a flight to make their travel arrangements complete.

For today's price driven customer, make sure you have access to the best value and price. Your online booking engine must be able to search the best sources for content quickly and cost effectively in order for you to offer a competitive price. You will also need the ability to easily adjust the selling price and perhaps include value add offers right in the fare availability display. Accessing low rates offered by air consolidators is one great way to ensure you are accessing the best fares for your clients. Since many air consolidators specialize in specific markets or destinations, you may look for an airline booking engine that allows you simultaneously search multiple air consolidators for the best fares.

Travel agents can be a great resource to consumers trying to make sense of all the options available and find the best deal possible, so make sure your agents have the expertise and tools to provide the topnotch service that only a professional travel agent can offer. It helps to negotiate the best deals possible with the airlines and promote any special deals or amenities that are available. Travel Agents can make sure a consumer gets the best deal and make sure your clients get the VIP treatment they are looking for. Make sure the airline reservation system your applications use allow your agents and clients to select seats, request meals and add loyalty program information to airline reservations.

Identifying the right combination of content and product features for your air booking engine can be critical for your travel business, finding the right technology partner can be just as important.

Booking A Hotel Online Should Be Easy

A hotel booking engine should reduce the time and effort required to complete a hotel reservation by automating the shopping and booking process for your customers while it increases your overall sales revenue. There are countless online booking engines in the market today accessing different content sources with varying degrees of features and functionality.

To take advantage of all the different distribution channels efficiently, hotel booking software needs to have Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C) capabilities. Applications should use responsive technology that automatically adjusts the screen display to fit the type of device being used in today's mobile world. For those looking to expand their reach through an affiliate & distribution network, there are online booking engines available that allow you to quickly add affiliate Users and websites with the ability to easily customize the look and feel of the booking engine for each. Basic functionality should include the ability to shop, book and manage hotel reservations online with full payment capability and support of cancelation policies.

To protect your brand identity, your online hotel booking engine should provide you the ability to customize the headers, footers and style sheets to provide a seamless online experience for your customers. Some solutions may even offer complete private label versions where business owners can control the complete layout to meet the specific requirements of their business.

There are hotels everywhere and with so many different options to choose from in any location, searching for the right hotel to match a client's specific needs can be overwhelming at times. Hotel images and detailed descriptions integrated right within the pricing and availability display can help provide the information needed to make the best selection much quicker. Good hotel booking software will include links to media files & rich content to assist both agents and customers with selecting the right hotel property and room type during the research, shopping and booking process.

Multiple language and multiple currency capability are two obvious features required of a hotel booking engine when expanding into new markets. Many international markets can also bring unique requirements and local supplier constraints, so it is important to work with an experienced technology partner ready to address these challenges. In some markets, you'll need a product that has been “localized” to meet that specific market's unique requirements as well as integration with local content sources.

The technology you use should be "state of the art" and deliver flexible & fully scalable applications that will allow your business to easily grow and expand into new markets while maintaining your own unique brand identity. Whether you need a simple “out of the box” online hotel booking solution or fully customized hotel booking software, a little research upfront will save you a lot of time and expense in the long term. Finding the right online booking solution can be an important decision for your travel business and finding the right technology partner can be a critical the first step to ensure success.

Flight Booking Software Should Help Your Business Compete

It is tough for any size agency to compete with the large online travel agencies buying power with the airlines today, but there are tools available today that can help level the playing field. Choosing the right flight booking software is one way of getting your business online and helping you start to compete effectively. The ultimate goal being to provide your clients with a unique online booking solution that results in operational efficiencies and reduces the overall cost of making a booking for all parties involved.

With ever changing airline schedules and airfare wars, an airline reservation system needs to provide Live access to airline content to be truly sure the most up to date availability and pricing is used. Some air booking engines even offer the ability to allow users to simultaneously search multiple content sources, saving valuable time when searching for the best airfare for a specific itinerary.

With so many suppliers offering so many different deals, keeping track of price adjustments and promoting special offers can be a full-time job for many travel website owners. It is almost impossible to keep pace with changing airfares and the multitude of special promotions that are available simultaneously. Today's travel booking solution must provide the capability to quickly adjust a selling price and advertise value add offerings included right in the availability display.

The right airline reservation system can help simplify the process with a powerful business Rule features that allow business owners to easily adjust a product's selling price, include value add offers in the availability display and more while supporting both B2B and B2C channels. In addition to the basic business rule functions such as marking up or discounting an airfare, some solutions incorporate custom rule types that even define additional filters to determine which type of booking or selling channel a specific business rule should apply to. Some include filters to define a Rule by affiliate, supplier, departure, destination and more.

You'll want your airline reservation system to include revenue management Tools with the ability to mark up or mark down a product's selling price by airline, itinerary, class of service, dates and more. Some of the more advanced flight booking software includes features like the ability to set up automatic emails to Customers' and /or Agents advising them that a payment is due.

Reporting capabilities should not only include basic booking statistics but also search statistics to determine what customers may be looking for when searching on your website, but not finding with the airline reservation system you are providing. This type of information can be potentially valuable when negotiating private airfares and commissions with suppliers or defining price adjustments to be included in the air booking engine display.

Flight booking software should provide with the tools needed to manage a business and provide operational efficiencies that increase sales and reduced costs. It should be easy to use for both agents and customers and provide live access to airline content. Finding the right online booking solution can be an important decision for your travel business and finding the right technology partner can be even more important.

Today's Booking Engine needs to do More Than Just Sell Airline Tickets

The online air booking engine was originally designed to automate processes, increase revenues and reduce time and effort required to research and book an airline reservation. These applications have evolved significantly over the years and whether your clients are looking to book an airline ticket, a hotel room or even that perfect cruise vacation, today's online reservation engine can help serve all of their travel needs.

Many online reservation engines have kept pace with the multiple ways that consumers research and book travel today. Some hosted applications utilize responsive technology to provide greater support of various mobile and tablet screen sizes so customers can easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless of what device they are using. While others provide the capability for a client's to host all User interfaces on their own server while using the booking engine for business logic and live pricing, availability & booking.

Whether your customers prefer to book their air arrangements directly with a travel agent (B2B) -or- they prefer to shop and book online (B2C), you'll want an online booking engine that provides the ability to service them easily via multiple selling channels using a single application.

The right air booking engine can provide the revenue management tools you'll need to manage your business, including the ability to mark up or mark down a product's selling price by airline, itinerary, class of service, dates and more. Some air booking engines even have the ability to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best price and provide live access to airline content to be sure the most up to date availability and pricing is used.

Whether your customer is travelling for business or pleasure, one of the most important parts of their travel arrangements can be hotel accommodations. This is an area that working with a travel agent can really pay off since many agents know the different hotel properties, have access to special deals and in many cases can get you that VIP treatment that will make your stay more enjoyable. Many of today's travel agency websites include a hotel booking engine option. This allows customers to take advantage of all the benefits that booking with a travel agent combined with the ease and accessibility of a using an online booking engine.

Booking with a travel agent may be the key to getting a special rate on a hotel room, a possible room upgrade or that special V.I.P. treatment during your stay. The right hotel booking engine can help your travel agency automate processes and reduce time or effort required to complete a hotel booking. Many are designed with the capability to search rates and availability at multiple properties in a given location and even include hotel images and descriptions to help decide which best hotel for a specific traveller.

Today's online travel booking engines allow any size travel agent to compete with the largest online travel agency while providing the personalized service that booking with an individual travel agent can provide. With so many options finding the right online booking engine can be a critical decision that determines the success of your online business. Finding the right technology company to partner with can be even more important.

How Booking A Flight Has Changed

Gone are the days when making a flight reservation was a time consuming and complex process.

Today just about anyone can book a flight quickly and easily using an online airline reservation system. The major airlines launched the first generation of flight booking software many years ago in an effort to automate bookings as their flight networks and number of bookings grew at an amazing pace.

Flight booking software has been around for decades and initially these internal airline systems were used by airline reservation staff to confirm bookings across their flight network. It was not long before the airlines began offering Travel Agents their own version of these systems for them to use as oppose to wasting time and resources calling the airline reservation center.

Today's online air booking engines are a result of years of technological evolution and have helped lead the online revolution in selling travel. Whether consumers use an airline website or one of the many online booking tools provided by travel agents, today's airline passenger is just a few clicks away from having their air travel arrangements confirmed.

Today's online booking engines can provide the tools for any size agency's website to compete with even the major online travel players. There are a countless number of online travel solutions available in the market today and choosing the right airline reservation system for your travel business can be critical decision. You need to identify what type of travel and how your clients prefer to book and decide what content you'll need access to.

Online booking engines for travel agents are designed to help travel agencies reduce their overall administrative costs while expanding their customer base and increasing revenues. Today's traveler research and book flights using a variety of devices, including their mobile phone or tablet. The increasing popularity of the air mobile app has been driven by a population that is always on the move and prefers not to carry their laptop with them. All they need to do today is to download an air booking mobile app on their cell phone and log-in. The features of an air mobile app can easily enable any travel business to cater to their clientele on the move.

An easy to use online booking engine allows agents to be trained quickly and has them selling faster. Some of the travel booking software available today can provide robust revenue management and reporting tools that give an agency owner the powerful controls they need to manage their business.

The introduction of the airline reservation systems has dramatically influenced how all travel products are researched and booked today. Flexible and customizable, the today's online travel booking engines are easily customized to support an agency's unique brand identity and selling style.

Today's technology options allow any size travel agency to compete with the largest OTAs while still providing the personalized service that booking with an individual professional travel agent can provide. With so much technology available, finding the right online booking engine can be a critical decision for your online business. Finding the right technology company to partner with can be even more important.

Rules Management

Let's talk about Rules. I believe it's one of the most innovative features we have added within our application. Rules basically allows for a client to define markups, discounts, value add offers that can be something as generic as a 200-dollar coupon booklet, or a 2-night free stay with something or something informative they want to communicate to the end person. They also have the ability to define onboard credits. An Onboard credit is something that we have designed primarily to meet market requirements. for example, when cruise lines stopped discounting, they allowed travel agencies to use a part of their commission to offer onboard credits or they themselves started offering onboard credits. Out of that came onboard credits which allows our clients over various complex rules to derive the exact amount that the customer is going to get maybe from the supplier, or from the agency or both. Or something that's very specific to cruise, which is the cruise deposit fix. The cruise lines came up with a promotion that allows someone to pay half a deposit. But their technologies do not support providing that reduced deposit amount. We actually had to build a rule type that allows our clients to go in and show that. The deposit amount, so the customers would actually be paying less rather than the full price the cruise lines weren't returning. Any of these rules, all share the same set of filters that they can be applied for. Our clients can choose from cruise line or airline, down to a ship, down to a particular sailing, down to a particular a flight number, on a given day. They have the ability to set these up. Their entire marketing campaign, so they automatically turn on and off without manual intervention, for activating or inactivating these rules. Some of the other complex rules we built have been built around that, would be the ability to define caps on what a customer can give away from their commission.

FUNCTIONALITY + THE RIGHT CONTENT = SUCCESS

Finding the right online airline booking engine with access to the content sources you are looking for can be a difficult and confusing process for even the most experienced and seasoned professional.

There several types of online travel booking engines available in the market today. Some offer specific travel products such as airline or hotel reservations and many provide the ability to target multiple selling channels including Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C) and even Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C). A more advanced online airline booking engine might even utilize innovative responsive technology that supportsvarious mobile device screen sizes so customers can easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless of the device they are using.There are even state of the art Air Mobile Apps available that allow any agency to expand their brand’s presence to hand held devices with dedicated Air Mobile Apps. Understanding how your customers prefer to research and book their travel arrangements along with some research on the different options available will help identify the right type of airline reservation system for your business.

Finding the right online booking engine to match your distribution channel needs is only part of the solution. Content is key when it comes to the success of any online business, including those selling airline tickets online. Identifying and securing the right sources to access the airline content you need can be just as critical to the success of your airline booking engine.

Many agency owners choose one of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) like Amadeus or Sabre to check availability and confirm airline reservations using their own specific agency GDS credentials. Accessing fares and availability via a GDS using an agents specific ID allows users to access not only the “published” airfares available in the market, but also any “private” or “negotiated” rates a specific agency may have with an airline. If you plan for your booking engine to use your GDS ID to make airline bookings, you’ll first want to find a technology partner who can connect the booking engine you choose with your GDS ID.

Others may choose to align themselves with Air Consolidators in order to access the lower, preferential airfares that these airline aggregators are able to negotiate. By aggregating sales from several smaller agencies, many Air Consolidators are able to drive significant volumes with airlines and as a result they are able to negotiate deeply discounted private fares as well as preferential fare rules and better commissions on published airfares. Some air booking engines even have theability tosimultaneously search multiple content sources for the best price, allowing an agency’s airline reservation system to combine their own content with fares and content from other sources such Air Consolidators or affiliated agencies they may work closely with.

With so many distribution channel options combined with the numerous airlines with what seems like countless different fare options, finding the right airline reservation system with the right content sources can be an important and critical decision that determines the success of your online business. Finding the right technology company to partnerwith can be even more important.

Differentiation

Let me introduce the Odysseus team, Glenn Dean, he manages our sales and marketing. He is the Vice president of Odysseus. We have Pramod Navani, that's our CFO/COO. He is helping us manage our operations both in US and in India. Rignesh Dave, who is our director of operations, but really that role's sort of just phasing into Pramod and he is being more of the CTO/architect. We have teams both in India and in United States. The core of our team and our development efforts come out of Vadodara, India where we have over 40 employees today. One of the other key things that make us different is our customer service. We focus and put a lot of emphasis on customer support and service. We believe every client is equal, no matter how big or small they are. We believe in the motto of ‘One size does not fit all'. No two clients of ours can ever sell the product the same way and we have learnt that from the 70 plus clients that we have acquired, that they actually don't like to sell the product the same way. And that's the core of how we built our product. It allows them for localization, to multiple languages, to localization to their currency. It supports their B to B model, a B to C model or perhaps their ability to distribute their product or fares through our platform in a B to B to C mode.

Affiliates Module

Affiliates Module was actually designed with the vision that any one of our clients could have subsites, agents, that are working from home, independent contractors, or just other referral sites that they want to provide their booking engine to. And then track sales, commissions and affiliate marketing. One of the other ways affiliate module can be used is, if clients are doing adwords on Google or Bing, they wanted to give in to metasearches, like skyscan or Kayak. They can give them unique id’s that allows them to price the product differently, it allows them to track searches, sales. They can completely customize the look and feel if they want. They can have multiple brands completely customized to their own look and feel. They can turn features on and off at an affiliate level, from something as simple as, if they want to make the email address required in the booking paths, to something more complex like, Oh I want to customize the header, the footer, the CSS. I also want different google analyst tracking or web trends tracking.

Introduction to Odysseus Solutions

We started Odysseus solutions back in July 2005, with this core interest of providing an out of the box solution to our clients that can be customized completely for one or more brands that they may have. Cruise is the core of how we started. That was the background that I came from. I started work at a cruise only agency and we were one of the first to launch an online cruise booking engine in those days. Over the four years that I was at cruise411.com, that was what I learnt, everyone was focused on how do we automate processes on air, car and hotel and not really many players were focused on cruise and that’s where I found that was an opportunity that would allow us to really excel. And its proven out to be the correct strategy.

Content, Business Rules and Distribution Are the Building Blocks for Online Success

Access to the right content with powerful business rules and flexible distribution capabilities are key to any travel business. Flight Booking Software that allows a business to aggregate travel content from multiple sources and distribute a Flight Reservation System to a network of affiliated agencies or home based agents can be a valuable tool in today’s competitive online marketplace.

There are multiple content source options for a Flight Reservation System to choose from today when booking a flight. The ability to search multiple sources for content with your own online booking engine can be important for those businesses that are taking advantage of the special rates and content that many consolidators or aggregators bring to the table. Some air consolidators focus on a specific geographic or ethnic markets for example and work with a network of affiliated agencies to book airline seats for their customers using the consolidator or host agency’s credentials. These consolidators are able to aggregate sales with suppliers such as airlines and leverage their overall volumes for better prices and access to special deals. Some focus on specific destinations or regions of the world and are experts about every aspect of travel there. Others serve certain ethnic or specialty groups and have developed a vast network of sub agents entrenched in these markets. By using your own fares and those of air consolidators or aggregators that you work closely with, you are able to remain competitive and provide your clients with the best value possible whether they shop online via your website or contact you directly.

The ability to expand your agency footprint while taking advantage of what the specialists have to offer can be a valuable tool for you to have as well. Your Flight Reservation System should allow you to easily extend the reach of your agency to serve customers whether in person, via a call center or online. You may also want to consider an application that allows you to easily extend your online air booking engine to other agencies and home based agents as well. And of course for those always “on the go” mobile consumers you’ll need a mobile ready application that adjusts the screen display to fit the device they are using.

Flight Booking Software must allow you to easily control business rules such as price adjustments, value add offers and targeted promotions. You’ll need the flexibility to control your business rules a variety of ways, so here is where you want to make sure the application has the flexibility you’ll need. Price adjustments should have the flexibility to be calculated as a fixed dollar amount ($) -or- a percentage (%) of the fare and apply to certain sales channels or affiliate groups. Business Rules should be easy to enter with the ability to define filters for a specific airline, flight number or class of service. With the way that airline fares and seat availability so frequently it can be nearly impossible for the most experienced travel agent to keep up with where to find the latest deals. A flexible and easy to use Business Rules feature can help you manage.

Finding Flight Booking Software that provides the right content, powerful business rules and flexible distribution capabilities is an important decision for any travel business, so choosing the right technology partner can be just as important.

Flight Booking Software options Can Vary

Travel industry online sales have exploded over the past decade and as a result, choosing the right online booking engine a critical decision for anyone selling travel today. With airline online ticket sales increasing year over year, making sure your travel business has the right flight booking software is even more important than ever. The right flight reservation system can serve as B2B, B2C and B2B2C applications which will automate processes increase your agency’s revenues and reduce the amount of time and effort required to complete an airline reservation. These online applications should be easy to use Easy to Use for Consumers and travel agents alike.

Most flight booking software can provide “live” connectivity with airlines so that the most up to date pricing and availability is used. Some flight reservation systems even have the ability to search multiple content sources simultaneously for the best price, allowing agency owners the ability to combine their own content with content from other sources.

Most travel agents look for a Flight Reservation System that allows them to customize the branding such as headers, footers and style sheets to reflect their agency’s unique brand identity and provide a seamless online experience for their customers shopping online. Complete customized versions are also available for those agency owners who are looking to design a complete customized layout of the flight reservation system to match their own specific requirements. There are even state of the art Air Mobile Apps available that allow any agency to expand the reach of their travel booking engine to hand held devices. The most advanced online airline booking applications utilize innovative responsive technology to provide support of various mobile device screen sizes so customers can easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless of the device they are using.

The business management tools that any application includes is an important factor and something which can vary greatly from system to system. Most applications include the ability to adjust a products selling price up or down, but the level of flexibility defining business rules is where systems can vary tremendously. Most have the ability to adjust a fare by airline, but some go much further and allow for Rules to be defined by itinerary, class of service, travel or booking dates and much more.

The ability to easily run reports to track your business and help you make adjustments along the way is also important. Who are your top customers? What are the top city pairs being shopped by your customers? Are your customers finding what they are looking for on your website? Many applications include reporting tools that track your bookings, but some can even provide search statistics to easily let you know what customers are looking for on your website. This can be valuable information for a business owner to consider when reviewing their negotiated airfare agreements with their preferred airlines.

Finding flight booking software with the right combination of options for your business can be a critical decision. Finding the right technology company to partner with can be just as important.

Are Hotel Booking Engines a Nightmare?

Whether travelling for business or pleasure, one of the most important arrangements for any trip can be the hotel accommodations. A bad seat selection on an airplane can make for a miserable flight, but it is something that you'll only need to endure for few hours. The wrong Hotel room however can ruin your entire trip.

Hotel Reservation Software should be easy to use and provide the information you and your clients need to research and complete a Hotel Booking. It should not make a User feel disappointed or somehow trapped in a Hotel nightmare like described in the 1977 Eagles song “Hotel California”. The album'stitle track “Hotel California” is a rock ballad about a luxury hotel visit that crosses over to the dark side. This iconic Eagles song was inspired by a drive into Los Angeles one evening filled with high expectations that were later shattered. The song has become a metaphor for people anticipating a dreamlike experience only to find themselves trapped in a nightmare.

But with so many different hotel options available and so many different ways to book a hotel room, where does someone start? Do you shop using one of the many online discount hotel sites for the best rate? Do you book directly with the hotel? Contact a professional Travel Agent?

If you are not sure if the hotel is right for you or if you are getting the best price, this is one of those times that booking with a travel agent can really work in your favor. Many experienced Travel Agents know the different hotel properties, have access to special deals and in many cases can get you that VIP treatment that will make your stay more enjoyable. Booking with a travel agent may be the key to getting a special rate on a hotel room, a possible room upgrade or that special V.I.P. treatment during your stay.

Many of today's travel agency websites I even include a Hotel Booking Engine option. This allows travelers to take advantage of all the benefits that booking with a travel agent combined with the ease and accessibility of a using an online B2C booking engine.

Hotel Reservation Software should be simple to use and never make the User feel like they are trapped in a Hotel nightmare. A travel agency Hotel Booking Engine needs to contain the information that both the Travel Agent and Consumer need to research and book the right hotel. Many of today's hotel applications include tools that allow Users to search for hotels by geographic locations, including specific neighborhoods and points of interest within a selected city. Specific Hotel information and photos should be up to date and accurately depict the property to avoid disappointment and that “Hotel California” feeling. Hotel Reservation Software should provide quick confirmation of reservations along with any information that the consumer needs in order to properly plan their stay.

Despite this, many online booking engines are difficult to manage and do not provide the flexibility that many travel agents require. Finding a Hotel Booking Engine with the right combination of options for your business can be a critical decision. Finding the right technology company to partner can be just as important.

Online Cruise Booking To Make Your Cruise Ship Experiences Awesome

Are you tired of waiting in the long queues to book the cruise tickets for your vacations? As cruise lines have extended their online reservation options- whether it is via pre-booking shore excursions, spa treatment or restaurant booking on the cruise- the sea travelers now spend less time standing in line on board and more time enjoying the thrills of the sea. Usually all cruise lines embraced online cruise booking solutions several years back, but now, they are expanding their online options which includes pre-reservation for a wide array of onboard actions via cruise booking engine and software.

So how does this system works? Rather than calling up your travel agents or waiting in the queue till you’ve embarked, once you book the cruise via the booking apps or site and get the confirmation number, you can log on to the official site of the cruise and map out the rest of the bookings. Lines such as Princess and Royal Caribbean also offer you the facility of personalized section, where all the info related to the cruise and your travelling is stored.

How has the advancement in online booking helped cruise travellers?

While a lot of travelers are embracing the early booking opportunities, but a lot of pre-planning could serve as a spontaneity killer and make you do something that you really didn’t want to. Thus, make sure to keep a check on the cancellation policies too before making reservation of any shore tours, specialty dinner or spa invites.

The very first stage of pre-booking is the cruise tickets. Cruise booking solutions give you the liberty to book tickets as per your convenience. With live chat assistance and email support, you can get answers to all your queries and questions. Cruise booking software allows quick booking from your smartphones. So, now you can book your cruise tickets while you’re on the go. You no longer need a PC or laptop to go through the different booking schemes. Check out all the dos and don’ts of the booking process, enquire about the refunds and cancellation policy. The booking software has several advantages.

You can easily look at the online program or download the software to track the details of everything, right from the expenses to the time spent on each activity on the cruise to keep a track of your timing. Cruise travelers appreciate the advancement of cruise booking sites where they can easily oversee the complete travel budget, amazing offers and services offered by the cruise owners.So, find out all about your favorite cruise by visiting cruise sites and finding out all about your favorite sea trip. Trust you me, it is the best way to enjoy a trouble –free vacation on sea during peak seasons. Try it out now.

Author is a travel enthusiast and love traveling all around the world. He is thankful to the sites such as odysseussolutions.com which has made it easy for him to book travel and cruise before time. You may check at the site for getting all the benefits.

Travel Software Can Help Your Business Expand

Retailers in any business need to keep up with the constant changes in the way consumer’s research and shop for just about everything. Whether you need to schedule your car to be serviced at the local dealer or you are looking to order your weekly groceries, chances are it can be done online. The travel industry is no exception to this rule and in fact has been a driving force behind this trend.

As online travel technology solutions continue to advance, more and more people are using some type of Travel Booking Engine to research and book just about any of their travel arrangements. Whether looking to just book airline tickets to visit friends -or- planning the annual family vacation on a Cruise, there are online booking engines available that can help guide just about anyone through the entire process.

The consumer trend of purchasing travel online has resulted in a transformation where traditional “brick and mortar” travel agency storefronts are being replaced by new sales channels in both the traditional B2B as well as B2C environments.

Sophisticated Travel Agent Software can provide almost any travel agency new and creative ways to standout in a crowded marketplace and remain competitive. To be successful, today’s Online Travel Agency requires a solution that provides them with the flexibility to adapt their business based on the latest market trends and pressures.

Travel Agent Software should be designed to automate the sale of multiple travel products and service multiple selling channels. It should be easily customized to maintain a Client’s brand identity and provide a seamless online experience for the end user, whether a travel agent or consumer. And to keep pace with today’s mobile society, your Travel Booking Engine should use responsive technology to optimize the presentation and display for various devices, screen sizes and resolution.

With the travel industry expanding worldwide and new markets opening up everyday, demand has never been higher for a new flexible, web based solutions. Travel Agent Software should be flexible & fully scalable enough to allow online travel agents to easily grow their business and expand into new markets while maintaining their own unique brand identity. To expand internationally, you’ll want to consider applications that are designed to meet the unique requirements of the global marketplace and can easily handle multiple currencies as well as multiple languages. The unique requirements and supplier constraints that many international markets bring can also be overwhelming. In many markets for example, the product will need to be “localized” and require working closely with Suppliers to “localize” the product as well as integrate local content sources.

The best approach for designing and developing a Travel Booking Engine is to research market requirements and work closely with customers and suppliers to identify each of their specific needs. This process helps reveal new and innovative ways to increase revenues and reduce the cost of making a booking. Finding the travel software that is right for your business can be an important decision, but finding the right technology partner to help your business expand can be even more important.

Hotel Booking Engines Bring Value

The right Hotel Booking Engine can bring additional value to the overall reservation services an agency provides whether for it is for a corporate or leisure customer. It allows agents to provide full service to their customers by making all of the travel arrangements for their trip while providing additional commission revenues for the agent.

Any online travel booking engine should be designed to reduce the time and effort required to research and complete a booking. For a Hotel Booking Engine to truly bring value, it should include access to rich content such as pictures and area maps as well as detailed descriptions of the property and room amenities to assist with selecting the right hotel property during the shopping process. For some online businesses, the need to be able to offer and book the special deals associated with a specific Agency Consortia or Agency Group can be essential. All this content needs to be fully integrated with both B2B and B2C sales channels for a business owner to avoid the headache of managing multiple booking applications to run their business.

Many Clients demand a choice deciding which content source their hotel booking application uses to access content. This allows them to offer their customers the right hotel content at the right price. A flexible online booking application should provide a variety of content sources to choose from or provide the ability to easily add a content sources for the Client.

A Hotel Booking Engine should be designed to make it quick and easy for Agents and customers alike to research and complete a hotel booking. It should include rich content such as detailed hotel descriptions, pictures and area maps to assist with selecting the right hotel property during the shopping process. And to make sure you are reaching those millennial consumers who shop for nearly everything using their smart phone, the application should use responsive technology that automatically adjusts the screen display layout based on the type of device being used.

The hotel booking application should be easily customized to match your brand identity and provide a seamless online experience for your customers. For some applications, this can be as simple as customizing the headers, footers and style sheets to match a Client’s specific branding. For others, a complete private label version may be the better choice where the layout as well as “Look & Feel” are changed to meet a Client’s specific requirements.

If you are planning to reach clients speaking multiple languages, and application with multiple language capability can be especially important in reaching certain demographic markets and essential for those looking to expand into internationally. And an automatic Email confirmation sent to customers from your email address should provide easy access for booking related questions and to add payment. Booking Reminders are also important to alert Customers and Agents that a payment is due.

Identifying the right combination of content and product features for your hotel booking engine can be a critical decision, finding the right technology partner can be just as important.

Online Flight Reservation Systems Can Evolve Your Business

The Air Booking Engines available in the market today are the result of decades of technological improvement. Originally designed to as a Flight Reservation System to automate the booking process for airlines, these applications have evolved over the years and have been a driving force behind the sale of travel products online today.

Airline tickets are a crucial component of most travel plans today and have always been a crucial part of any business selling travel. Once considered the “bread and butter” of a travel agent’s business, recent airline commission cuts have forced travel agents to find new and more cost effective ways to sell airline tickets.

Today, a Flight Booking Engine can provide Live access to airline content via direct connections or Global Distribution Systems and provide Users with the most up to date content, availability and pricing. Some Booking Engine even have the ability to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best price, allowing business owners to combine their own fares with the fares of one or more consolidators.

Many applications allow for the headers, footers and style sheets to be customized to maintain an individual business’ own brand identity and provide a seamless online experience for customers right “out of the box”. Others offer customized private label versions where the complete layout is customized to meet your specific requirements.

Most Flight Reservation Systems include Revenue Management Tools with the ability adjust price and inventory, including marking up or marking down a selling price by airline, itinerary, class of service, dates and more. It should also allow for you to setup special promotions or offers that can be redeemed during the booking process. Reporting capabilities can be a crucial tool when evaluating how any online business is performing and a Flight Booking Engine is no exception. Business Managers need quick and easy access to the information needed for them to properly manage their online travel business.

To reach those customers always on the go, you will want to make sure that your Booking Engine is mobile ready and can support various mobile and tablet screen sizes used today. Customers need to be able to easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless the type of device they are using. You may even want to consider adding a dedicated Mobile app to offer to your regular customers “on the go” and increase your brand awareness.

Or if you are looking to control your own User Interface screens, you may want to consider one of the Booking Engine API products available in the market. These products allow you to develop and host all air booking engine User interfaces on your own servers while using the existing connections, powerful features and robust business tools that an established Flight Booking Engine has to offer for business logic and live Pricing, Availability & Booking.

Identifying the right combination of content and product features for your Flight Reservation System can be a critical decision, finding the right technology partner can be just as important.

Travel Booking Engines Functionality & Content Are Key

There are so many different types of content available and so many different online travel booking engines available today that it is sometimes difficult to know which is the best fit for your company. While one booking engine may have the great functionality and the features you need, it may not have the content your clients are looking for. On the flip side, you may find a travel booking solution with the perfect content source, but find that it is missing the functionality and features you need.

If you are selling multiple travel products, you may want your booking engine to access hotel content using one source, but look to use a totally different connection for your airline bookings or perhaps several other sources when booking a cruise. Finding the all the right travel related content sources in a single online booking solution that has the features and functionality you need can be overwhelming at first and a bit of a challenge at best.

The solution to your problems may be found with an online booking engine with the features and functionality you need to properly manage your business that also has a flexible supplier connection gateway which will allow you to access different content sources for different travel products. Some of the more advanced travel booking engine seven allow you to choose specific content sources by Supplier, providing the ultimate in content source flexibility. Say you want to use your GDS to make most of your cruise bookings, except one or two where you prefer to use a direct connection for faster response time or enhanced functionality. Your booking engine needs to be able to quickly and easily support these different connections and know when to use each.

As preferred supplier relationship become increasingly important to securing the best price and commission levels, display biasing has become a tool for many agencies to promote their preferred suppliers over one that’s not preferred. In many cases, the ability to bias the display towards one supplier over another allows an agency to steer consumers to the Supplier they earn the best commission with, thus increasing their overall profits. Many Suppliers are quick to recognize the benefits of a biased display and some may offer increased commissions and marketing support to those with an online booking solution that has this capability.

Travel Booking Engines also need the ability to quickly and easily define business rules so you can maximize profits and include value add offers or special deals in the availability display. Your online booking engine needs to be able to keep up with all the different specials and promotions that Suppliers make available today. Selling price adjustments and value add offers should be easy to define and have the flexibility to define a rule by a specific market, travel dates, booking dates, supplier uses and more.

Finding a travel booking solution that has the functionality and content you need is an important decision for your business, finding the right technology partner to assist you can be even more important.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. Some of the more advanced travel booking engine seven allow you to choose specific content sources by Supplier, providing the ultimate in content source flexibility.

Air Booking Engines should be convenient and easy to use

There are so many different places that consumers can go to purchase some products, so why would someone choose to purchase an identical product from one retailer verses another? The answer usually comes down to price, service or convenience. Whether you are selling a bottle of designer perfume or a ticket on an airline, chances are consumers will base where they choose to make their purchase based on one or all of these criteria. Choosing one airline booking engine over another is no different for today’s savvy, online traveler.

Make sure you offer the best value and price if you want to reach price driven consumers. Your online booking engine must be able to search the best sources for content quickly and cost effectively for you to offer a competitive price. This includes the ability to adjust the selling price quickly and easily as well as offering value add offers right in the fare availability display. Accessing the low rates offered by air consolidators is another way to get the best fares for your clients. Different air consolidators specialize in different regions however, so you may look for an airline booking engine that allows you simultaneously search multiple air consolidators for the best fares.

Provide the expertise and service that only a professional travel agent can offer. Travel agents can be a great resource to consumers trying to make sense of all the options available and find the best deal possible. You are your customers travel expert, so make sure your clients get the VIP treatment they deserve. Make sure your application allows them to select seats, request meals and add loyalty program information to their airline reservation. Negotiate the best deals possible with the airlines and promote any special deals or amenities that are available.

Make sure your airline booking engine is convenient for customers to interact with how and when they choose. Today’s consumer has become accustom to shopping using a variety of devices. Some exclusively use their smart phone to research and purchase travel online. Others may start their initial search using their handheld device but switch to a tablet or laptop to complete the purchase. And you will always have the more traditional consumer who may research options online, but prefer to speak with a travel agent to make the actual booking.

To serve all these customers, your online booking engine must allow you to distribute your products and serve your customers via several online channels. You will need an application that supports Business to Business (B2B) for those customers using call centers. For this, you will want to consider an application that is easy to use and requires little agent training. For those consumers shopping via your website, you’ll need a Business to Consumer (B2B) application that allows you to promote special deals and value add offers. And of course for those always “on the go” mobile consumers you’ll need a mobile ready application that adjusts the screen display to fit any device.

Ease of usse and convenience are important when deciding on the right airline booking solution for your travel business, choosing the right technology partner can be even more important.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions.Different air consolidators specialize in different regions however, so you may look for an airline booking engine that allows you simultaneously search multiple air consolidators for the best fares.

Travel Agent Software Needs Flexibility

The internet has changed the way that the world researches and shops for everything from clothing to cruises. The ability for consumers to shop online means retailers now have the opportunity to sell their products or services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Today's online retailer virtually never closes their doors!

So today's travel agent software must be designed to provide the flexibility to serve these 24/7/365 consumers when and how they choose. You'll need an application that allows your travel business to serve customers via multiple channels including Business to Business (B2B) for those consumers that still like to speak with a travel agent call center to discuss and book their travel arrangements. For consumers shopping online, you'll need an easy to use Business to Consumer (B2C) online booking engine, but make sure it is a mobile ready so you can easily serve consumers using any device, including their smartphone.

The internet has also made the world a smaller place for retailers and the travel industry is no exception. No longer limited by “brick and mortar” store fronts, today's travel agent can serve customers anywhere in the world with the right travel agent software. Those who are looking to reach Latino consumers may want to consider an online booking engine that has multi-language capabilities so they interact with these customers online in Spanish. For those looking to expand beyond their country's boarder, the online booking engine needs to easily support multiple currency types. It will also need to consider any local requirements and regulations for online commerce in a specific market.

Your travel agent software will also need the flexibility to easily define business rules and promotions for each specific market so you can easily take advantage of market specific deals and promotions. Easy to use business rules will allow you to manage and localize what your customers are offered in each market. Choosing an online booking solution that has the flexibility to quickly define business rules using a wide variety of criteria can help any size business compete with even the largest online retailers.

The ability to quickly and easily customize a sub-website's “Look & Feel”, including unique headers and footers for each can be a powerful tool when working with an affiliated agency or group. Flexibility to choose the language or currency used as well as products offered can be critical to your success in a new market.

So whether you are looking to serve a new customer group, expand your service into new geographic markets or just distribute online to multiple websites, flexibility is key. Flexible & fully scalable applications can help you grow your business to serve new customer groups as well as new easily expand into new geographic markets and still allow your business to maintain it'sown unique brand identity.

Flexibility to grow and expand your business is key when deciding on the right software for your travel agency, choosing the right technology partner can be even more important.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. So today's travel agent software must be designed to provide the flexibility to serve these 24/7/365 consumers when and how they choose.

Localize Your Air Booking Engine When Going Global

Think your online airline booking engine is ready to go Global? Well there are the obvious things that you will need to consider such as local language and local currencies. As many expanding internationally quickly learn however, there are a lot more things your business will need to address before your global expansion will be successful.

A centralized application managing Live connections with Supplier content along with flexible Business Rules to manage the product offered customers is key for any online travel business. But launching airline reservation software in global markets involves a lot more than an online booking engine with multi-currency and multi-language capabilities. As many businesses quickly learn, there is a difference between “globalizing” a product so that it is generic enough to work in several markets verses “localizing” a product. Just as the languages and currencies used in different countries may vary, so do many of the regulations regarding consumers and the disclosure of information during the selling process.

Many market requirements dictate a unique sales flow and some may need access to specific local content only available in that market. These variables require an airline booking engine with a layout that can be quickly customized to meet local requirements combined with easy access to critical local market content to complement “global” content providers.

While simply translating an application into a new language may be a quick way of entering a new market, there is some danger with his approach. Lost in Translation, your brand message may be unclear or miscommunicated. Many have learned that Languages often need to be customized or localized to account for regional dialects. The Portuguese spoken in Brazil is much different than in Portugal. The Spanish spoken in Latin America can be dramatically different than that in Spain. Remember when Chevrolet launched the Chevy Nova in Latin America, not realizing at first that the cars English name (No-Va) loosely translated to “No Go” in Spanish?! Even English sounds different when spoken by the British verses an American. Although as an American, I do have to admit the British always sound better!

Some travel businesses may even want to offer a discount to customers who book online and encourage bookings via this cost effective channel. Or perhaps a lower the price based on the time of day or the day of week a booking is made. The possibilities are endless and your ideas should not be limited by the constraints of your booking engine.

As today’s consumers have more and more options, targeted messages and custom offers have become a key marketing approach used by many successful travel companies. Access to airline reservation software that can quickly and easily target special offers by departure city or destination can be a critical tool needed to communicate where the best deals are or where a specific offer can be found.

Finding the right technology partner to help take your business global is important, finding a technology partner who understands the need to localize before you can globalize in even more important.

Hotel Reservation Software Needs Content Flexibility

Hotel chains were early to embrace the internet as a cost effective way to reach consumers and many quickly developed their own online hotel booking engine. It allowed many hotel chains to showcase their properties online with pictures and later virtual tours. For the first time consumers were able to actually view the different types of rooms available as well as the hotel gym or restaurant and could get a good idea whether a particular hotel was right for them.

The growth of Online Travel agencies over the past few years has shifted online consumers away from individual Hotel websites over to regional Hotel aggregators where price & availability rule the display. These aggregators use hotel reservation software that provides a quick and easy way for consumers to identify the best hotel based on price and availability. But there is a trend emerging with some consumers who are demanding more, some are looking for more than just a hotel room at the lowest price. Many consumers are looking for a luxurious travel experience or they may have complicated requirements that require personalized attention that only travel professionals can provide.

Many larger agencies or consortia groups have embraced this trend and are now providing their customersaccess to special features and amenitiesalong with their hotel booking. Special amenities such as concierge service and complimentary beverages are now offered for the most valued guests. Today’s frequent traveler is on the go and they have become increasingly dependent on their mobile devices to manage their lives as well. Delivering the content and amenities targeted for a specific group of customers can be tricky at times, but providing it quickly and easily with an online hotel booking engine can be even more challenging.

If you are just getting started, you’ll need to identify the content your customers look for the most and then some quick research on content source options will go a long way to help you find the right source. Whether your clients travel for business or leisure, there are content sources available for any type of hotel from the leisure budget hotel to the full service, high end business hotel.

Once you have identified the content providers that match your client’s requirements, a good technology partner can help you automate the content as well as any include amenities so you can offer it all online. Planning or changing travel plans are no exception, so your online hotel booking engine needs to support these features and benefits not only during the research and shopping process, but the entire booking process as well.

To accomplish this requires integration of hotel reservation software that delivers the information to the specific hotel property identifying a particular VIP guests along with details of any special offers included. For example, as more hotels offer unique amenities for preferred guests such as free internet or access to concierge level lounges, a hotel booking engine needs to make sure this information is sent along with the reservation informing the actual hotel property.

Finding the right hotel supplier to help serve your customer’s needs is important, finding a technology partner with the flexibility to customize that service is even more important.

Automation can benefit or plague your business

Todays' Travel Agency Software can help save any agency time and resources while increasing sales revenue. Providing your customers the flexibility to research and make travel bookings when and where they want can be critical in today's “high touch” world. The right Travel Agent Booking Software can help save any travel agency time and resources while increasing Sales, but too much automation can also be a nightmare.

When I recently called the customer service line for my cable company, I experienced an automation “merry-go-round” that has become all too familiar with many companies today. After unsuccessfully searching their website for the information I needed about adding service, I decided to call their customer service number for help. I was forced to listen to a lengthy, pre-recorded message telling me what I already knew, and then listened to the 7+ options I could choose from, none of which was what I was looking for. I got so frustrated that I hung up!

My issue still unresolved, I called back and kept hitting “zero” until I finally reached someone who took a message! I know we all love to hate our cable company, but these types of issues seem to plague many business' today. Many have tried to cut costs by automating their customer service lines but have done so at the expense of the service level they provide their customers.

On the flip side, I was planning a quick, last minute trip to New York City a few weeks ago and went online and found a great hotel at a reasonable price. The Travel Agency Software I was using provided me the information I needed to know about the price, location, amenities, etc. and allowed me to book the room using my credit card. I got an immediate confirmation for my booking and was all set in a matter of minutes. Quite a different experience than when I called the cable company.

These are good examples of how automation can both benefit or plague businesses and consumers alike. While using Travel Agent Booking Software to automate processes to reduce the time and effort it takes to service customers, business owners must also provide customers access to the human touch or risk the personal relationships that keep their business strong. After all, you never know who your clients will talk to about their experience with your business and nothing attracts new customers like positive “word of mouth”.

In other words, there needs to be a balance between using an automated solution to address simple customer service tasks and providing access to customer service representatives for those “high touch” customers requiring personal attention. Travel Agent Booking Software should be easy to use and provide the ability for agents to service customers directly using a B2B application as well as a B2C options for customers to research and book travel when and where they want. Online booking engines should also be mobile ready, so today's mobile consumer can access it from any device they choose, whether that be their smart phone, tablet or laptop. Travel Agent Software should enhance your interaction with customers, not frustrate and distance them from you.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. An advanced online Travel Booking Engine will allow for you to make price adjustments and extend special offers that target a specific sales channel such as B2B or B2C.

Booking Engine Customization & Mobile Readiness Becoming Critical

Flexibility in how an online travel booking engine can be customized as well as where and how it is made available have become important factors when selecting a technology partner for your travel business. “Out of the box” online booking engines may work for some travel agencies, but more and more are looking to tailor their customer experience and branding with custom online booking engines.

An XML booking engine can be an ideal solution for those in the online travel business looking to customize the layout and flow of their booking engine without taking on the complex development of live connectivity with travel suppliers or the multifaceted business rules engine most need. Many of today's Air XML booking engines can provide a travel business owner much more than a simple “live” connection to check pricing & availability or to book a flight. These innovative products can provide any size travel business the ability to take full advantage of the powerful business logic and processing capabilities of an established booking engine while customizing the User Interface to their own specifications, at their own convenience. Customers can host all User Interfaces on their own servers while using the Air XML for business logic as well as live pricing, availability & booking capability. An XML booking engine can take full advantage of the powerful features an established booking engine provides such as the ability to easily adjust a products selling price easy price and robust reporting capabilities.

For those looking to service those customers who are always on the go, a mobile booking engine is an option you may want to consider for your travel business. All signs indicate that the general population will increasingly use their smart phones as more and more people become constantly connected to social media. As a result, mobile technology is becoming increasingly important for any business looking to reach them. People are not only using today's mobile devices to interact with each other, they are also using these devices to make a significant number of purchases online.

Some consumers may use various different devices as they research and eventually purchase products online. For instance, many consumers may start their initial research using their smart phone, but switch to a Laptop to complete the purchase. Others will choose to use their handheld device exclusively and access a mobile booking engine via a website or dedicated mobile App that they have downloaded on their device. Either way, your business needs to be ready to serve these customers on the device they choose to use.

Today's state of the art mobile booking engine can take full advantage of the easy access to content and powerful features that an online booking engine offers combined with the ease and mobility of using a smart phone. Finding an online booking solution with the right combination of options for your business can be a critical decision. Finding a technology partner that will help you reach today's consumer where and how they shop for travel can be just as important.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. An advanced online Travel Booking Engine will allow for you to make price adjustments and extend special offers that target a specific sales channel such as B2B or B2C.