Innovation is Key to Booking Airlines Effieciently

From the beginning, airlines have been driving efficiency through innovation with systems designed to automate processes and reduce the time required to complete an airline reservation. These systems have been providing travel industry professionals the ability to book air travel directly for decades. Early on they began to offer the ability to search schedule availability and price for flights by a variety of search criteria such a specific airline, flexible travel dates, nearby airports, nonstops only, etc. As the volume of an airline's business grew and they began to offer more service options in advance, the airline reservation system quickly began to include these features as well. Advance seat Selection, special service requests, ordering onboard meals in advance all became additional options in an online booking engine as well. Credit Card validation, AVS checks, Airline blocking, ticket type checks as well as consolidator and negotiated fares soon followed.

Many travel companies have found that the airline booking engine they can license from an experienced travel technology company to be more powerful and cost effective than developing, hosting and maintaining it themselves. For those looking to control their own user interface, some technology companies provide the capability for Clients to host all User interfaces on their own server while using a web services interface to their booking engine hosted by their technology partner.

There are many types of hosted solutions available including everything from the basic "out of the box" airline reservation system to more customizable applications that include unique sub-domains for your specific version of the application to minimize the appearance customers are being redirected from your website. The best of these allow for booking engine's headers, footers and style sheets to be customized to maintain your brand identity and provide a seamless online experience for your customers. Some travel companies may require a fully custom application where they design the complete layout to meet their own specific requirements. Mobile apps are now available that can extend an airline booking engine to a dedicated app. Many clients are also choosing mobile ready applications built using responsive technology that automatically provides support of various mobile and tablet screen sizes so customers can easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless of the device they are using.

As is the case with many things, the more that you need customized, the higher your costs are likely to be. So remember to evaluate the benefit that customization brings compared to the associated additional costs.

Live access to content is critical for any airline reservation system. Some air booking engines even have the ability to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best price, allowing an agency to combine their own content with content from a partner agency. Management Tools include the ability to mark up or mark down a product's selling price by airline, itinerary, class of service, dates and more. Some even allow for promotional codes to be set up that can be redeemed during the booking process.

Finding an airline booking engine that can help your online business drive efficiencies through innovation is important. Finding the right technology partner to help make this happen is the key to success.

Drive Hotel Booking Through Innovation

Travel Technology providers were one of the pioneers in online commerce and a critical factor to the success of today's online travel business worldwide. The most innovative and comprehensive online travel solutions available in the market today evolved through years of collaboration with travel agents and travel suppliers. Engaging all of the parties involved in the selling process during an application's design phase and using innovative, state of the art technology are key when developing the best online booking solutions.

For example, a hotel reservation system should be designed to automate processes and reduce time and effort required to research and complete a hotel booking. It should provide live, up to date pricing and availability using live connections where ever possible. And with so many hotel options available, both travel agents and consumers appreciate solutions that include links to media files & rich content to them assist with selecting the right hotel property during the shopping process. The ability to search for a hotel by geographic area and points of interest will help narrow the search and ensure they are where they need to be. Having easy access to hotel amenities included such as complimentary breakfast or WiFi access can be key factors when choosing a hotel property. Room size and bedding options available may be an important consideration when making arrangements for more than one traveler.

And in today's mobile world, a hotel booking engine needs to be mobile ready. Look for applications that use innovative responsive technology that automatically adjusts the screen display layout based on the type of device being used. Expand your sales network with features that allow you to quickly add affiliate Users or websites and the ability to easily customize the look and feel for each including headers, footers, style sheets, email addresses & company name. Access to local content as well as multi language and multi currency capability are additional factors to consider if you plan to expand your business into ethnic or international markets.

The hotel reservation system you use needs to allow you to manage your online hotel bookings with full payment capability and support of cancelation policies. It should have the content your customers are looking for at a competitive price. Look a booking engine with easy to use administrative features such as Profile Management and Preferences Management that provide you the ability to turn on/off these features yourself as oppose to paying someone to do it for you.

Reporting capabilities to track your business are also critical features to look for when shopping for a hotel booking engine. Booking statistics are important tools when measuring your business compared to previous periods, but quick and easy access to information like search statistics and "Look to Book" ratios can help you identify trends and potential issues before it's too late to make adjustments or change course.

The hotel reservation system you choose should be fast, responsive and provide the relevant content your customers are looking for while driving efficiencies through innovation. It's just a matter of finding the right technology partner to make this happen.

Driving Efficiencies Through Innovation

The innovative technology that is available today has made us all more efficient in so many ways. Smart phones allow us to have telephone conversations from just about anywhere and we are all just a few clicks away from checking our email or social media. Not sure how to get somewhere? Check your smart phone for directions. And today you can purchase just about anything right from your phone as retailers become increasingly focused on mobile ready technology.

There's a wide range travel technology available today depending upon your specific needs. Everything from easy to use "out of the box" solutions for those just getting started to unique custom business solutions designed to specifically meet the needs of your business are available. There are even "out of the box:" solutions that can be easily customized to support your own unique brand identity. These solutions can be valuable features for online travel agencies looking to build and protect their brand.

In today's mobile world, travel technology solutions need to have a User experience designed to maximize sales while making the research and booking of travel arrangements easy. Efficiencies in the way that a travel agent interacts with their customers can help save the time it takes them to create a travel related booking and increase an agent's overall sales volume. For example, having the right special offers in place and being able to quickly identify them right in the availability display can be just as important as the ability to easily adjust a product selling price in today's competitive online environment. Many of today's online booking engines include powerful business rules features that allow business owners the flexibility to easily pre-define price adjustments and "value add" offers using wide variety of filters including type of service, supplier, travel dates and booking channel to name just a few.

Travel technology should provide your business access to all booking channels. This includes traditional business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) and even business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C). For those looking to expand their sales network to include home based agents, the ability to extend the use of the online booking engine to these groups will allow you to expand the reach of your sales network. Mobile ready applications are another key feature to look for.

Innovative travel technology solutions that quickly and easily combine travel components such as Cruise + Air + Hotel together to create Custom Packages have become increasingly important as travel agents look to create unique packaged offers to their consumers. The Dynamic Packaging of components has also become increasingly popular with consumers looking to create their own unique packaged experience. Booking Engines which automatically offer a hotel reservation after an airline reservation is complete not only make the booking process more efficient, but can also help your travel business increase hotel bookings significantly and drive up your overall sales volume.

Finding travel technology that will have your online business driving efficiencies through innovation is important. Finding the right technology partner to help make this happen is the key to success.