Travel Solutions Come In Many Forms

Online sales can save any business time and money making it the most cost effective method for many businesses to deliver products and services to their customers. The "state of the art" technology available today helps software developers to design, develop and deliver flexible & fully scalable applications that easily grow with any size business.

Travel booking solutions are available in many different forms and can be a critical component of any travel business, so you'll want to research the different options available in the market. And there are plenty of options out there, so be prepared to do your homework. First, you'll want to understand your customer and determine their travel needs and shopping preferences. You'll want to determine whether your customers are primarily booking their leisure travel or business travel with you. Knowing this can not only help you determine the type of online booking engine you'll need, but also the type of Supplier content you'll need included as well. For example if your client's are primarily leisure based, you'll want to include hotel resort options that are geared towards the leisure traveler as oppose to a downtown business hotel.

Next you'll want to do some quick research on the different booking engine options available. For example, consider travel booking solutions that automatically offer your clients the option to book a hotel room when they have selected an airline itinerary. This can be an excellent way for you to expand your overall sales volumes while helping you serve your customers more completely and build up customer loyalty in the process.

And to remain competitive in today's crowded marketplace, you'll need the capability to quickly and easily adjust a product's selling price or include a value add offer right in the availability display. The ability to pre-define set business rules based on a wide range of criteria including supplier, travel date, booking date as well as a whole list of other parameters. Some of today's sophisticated travel booking solutions even provide the ability to customize the application and maintain a company's own unique brand identity. Using your company's specific unique branding such as company logo, header, footer and CSS can transform an ordinary "out of the box" solution and make it appear like a custom application built specifically for your business.

The booking engine you choose needs to be able to provide your travel business the access the content your customers need at the price they are looking for. It needs to include business rules capability for you to easily adjust a product's selling price and offer special targeted promotions. And most of all, it needs to be easy to use and mobile ready to meet the demands of today's consumer.

Finding a travel booking solution with the right combination of options for your business can be an important decision and critical to the success of your business. Finding a technology partner that will help you reach today's mobile consumer where and how they shop for air travel can be just as important.

Booking Flights Online Has Become Routine

Booking a flight online has become so routine these days, it's hard to remember the days when this was a time consuming and complicated process. Years ago, it used to be that a trip to the local travel agent or a call to the airline was required to check schedule availability and price in order to make a flight reservation. This often required several trips or calls with your travel agent before your itinerary was confirmed and your ticket issued. The flight booking software available today has streamlined the entire process and is designed to automate the flight booking process and increase the number of airline bookings a travel agency makes.

Most flight booking software includes some type of business rules functionality that allows an application's administrator to easily define price adjustments such as price markups or discounts as well as include value add offers and more. In addition to the basic functions such as markup and discount, some booking engine rules incorporate custom rule types such as master promotions and agent commissions. Agents can even define additional filters to decide which type of booking or selling channel they want to apply a specific business rule to. Filters can include the ability to define a Rule by affiliate, supplier, departure, destination and more. Rules can even be defined according to the day week and time of day that a booking is made. Newly added or modified rules are applied almost instantly, ensuring the best deals are offered to customers accessing the flight booking engine.

And in order to serve today's growing number of travelers who use their mobile device to research and book their flight arrangements as well as those that switch between devices during the research and booking process, many of those selling airline tickets are building applications that use responsive technology. This way, regardless of the type of device a customer decides to use, applications built using responsive technology can automatically adjust the screen layout based on the type of device being used. For those businesses looking to have a dedicated Mobile App for their brand, there are several companies designing and developing custom Air Booking Apps. Some offer mobile applications as an optional "add-on" to existing flight booking software while others develop them independently. Either of these approaches offer Consumers the ease and mobility of using a smart phone or tablet when accessing an online airline booking engine. Mobile Apps and mobile responsive technology are no longer for big brand names either. Travel software companies can now provide any size travel agency affordable applications that are built using the latest state of the art technology with the powerful business tools that they need to compete with just about any size online travel business.

Finding flight booking software with the right combination of options for your travel business can be a critical decision. Finding a technology partner that will help you reach today's mobile consumer with the right content and tools to automate your business can be just as important.

Travel Agent Software Needs to Keep Pace

Technology has changed the way the world interacts and selling travel is no exception. The travel agent software available today has automated and customized the entire booking process while providing comprehensive and innovative solutions for travel agents to serve their customers better. There are solutions available today for travel agents that will make the entire shopping and booking process quicker and easier for themselves as well as for their customers.

For example, currently planning and booking a cruise can be a long process and generally involves multiple online and offline steps. It starts with online research which may involve cruise line websites, cruise reviews, online travel companies and social media applications. Many of today's consumers shopping for a cruise seek advice from friends and family before they visit and/or talk to a traditional travel agent or call a cruise line representative. And online is no longer limited to using a desktop or laptop with many initial cruise searches were conducted on mobile devices. Integrating the online and offline research, shopping and booking experience is critical since many consumers will switch between various devices as they research and eventually purchase products.

The challenge is to integrate consumer online planning and research with the offline expertise of a traditional travel agent. One way to accomplish this goal is for the travel agency to deploy an online booking engine. This may sound counter intuitive for traditional agents who want to keep the booking offline, but allowing the consumer to plan online with an agency sponsored booking tool may represent one of the most important ways to integrate online and offline activity and capture the customer's business.

Travel agent software must be easily integrated with the entire process and provide consistency in the shopping experience. Applications should have the most up to date availability and pricing along with detailed descriptions with pictures & images to assist both agents and consumers during the research, shopping and booking process. And for those looking to expand their reach into new markets, the ideal solution must also provide for localization of language, currency and market requirements.

Easy to use travel agent software should be built in a way that automates processes and reduces the amount of time it takes to make a booking. Many are designed to be so easy to use that they require minimal training and can have agents selling quickly. The application should be easy to use and contain the relevant information that a travel professional needs to research the options available. For example, finding the right hotel based on an individual customer's specific needs is an important part of planning any trip, but can be overwhelming with so many options available. To help simplify the process and select the right hotel for a client, many hotel booking engines integrate links to media files & rich content to assist during the shopping process.

Finding travel agent software 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 mobile consumer where and how they shop for travel can be just as important.

Travel Technology Needs Integration Capabilities

Customer Loyalty programs, new distribution technology and strategic alliances are all playing a significant role in today's competitive marketplace. Loyalty programs have been used by the travel and tourism industry for years and remain an important marketing tool for Suppliers to attract and retain their best repeat customers. These programs have become an integral part of many the marketing plan for many businesses and can drive consumer behavior significantly.

With VIP special discounts and travel benefits being some of the most popular rewards offered by many industries, travel technology solutions that seamlessly integrate with company loyalty program can be a great benefit and good way to ensure your customers receive the best deals possible. Lucrative discount offers as well as value add offers loyal consumers have earned can be seamlessly integrated into their travel booking. Loyalty program integration with an online booking engine can come in the form of gift cards, travel rewards, discounts or even actual merchandise with the integration being seamless to the end user and relatively quick to set up.

Businesses have been quick to learn that moving sales to E-commerce saves them time and money. Online sales are typically the most cost effective way to serve customers today and innovative new technology helps software solution providers design and develop flexible & fully scalable applications that easily grow with any size business. As the use of mobile devices has exploded over the past few years, easy to use mobile ready solutions have become an important extension of any online retailer. Airline reservations were the first to gain popularity with online booking solutions, so it makes sense that an air mobile app is quickly becoming an important selling tool in today's mobile society. These state of the art air mobile apps use all the powerful administrative features that an online booking engine has to offer combined with the ease and mobility of a smart phone.

And with the price competitive marketplace that exists today, Supplier availability and fares can fluctuate by the minute. Airfare wars, last minute hotel room discounts or free cabin upgrades on cruises can all change the offer. Travel technology solutions that leverage the live connections large Global Distribution Systems (GDS) like Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport have with airlines are able to provide the latest fare availability and complete an airline booking in real time.

Travel technology solutions must provide the ability to easily control business rules such as price adjustments, value add offers or targeted promotions. The flexibility to control business rules a variety of ways can be critical, so here is where you want to make sure the application has the flexibility you'll need. For example 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 define and include filters for a specific suppliers, or product.

As competing for customers becomes increasingly competitive, travel technology solutions should include features like loyalty program integration, mobile ready applications and secure, live connections to supplier content. Finding an online booking engine 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 mobile consumer where and how they shop for travel can be just as important.

Time To Upgrade Your Flight Reservation System

It is no secret that just about every industry has been focusing more resources on e-commerce solutions as more people rely on the internet for just about everything. However many travel companies have had their own, unique challenges developing and enhancing their flight reservation system. Some are still using solutions built with legacy technology and are unable to easily add new content or make simple changes to their User Interface. The architecture used by these legacy systems is not at all as advanced or flexible as that of today's distributed and layered applications. Many legacy systems hardcode business policies using inflexible, predefined process flows. This makes any integration with customer relationship management systems and Internet-based business applications difficult and sometimes simply impossible. And if falling behind from a technical standpoint isn't bad enough, it has become increasingly difficult for companies to find developers who want to maintain applications written in languages that are not widely used in today's technology.

The internet revolution is usually a key driving force behind a company's decision to switch away from a legacy system. E-commerce sales can save a business time and money making it the most cost effective method for many to deliver products to customers. The "state of the art" technology available today can help a software solution provider design and develop a flight reservation system that is flexible & fully scalable. Some can even provide the ability to customize the application to maintain a company's own unique brand identity.

Experience has shown that some of the best software solutions are the result of collaboration. Software Developers, Suppliers and Users can all provide valuable input to help design and develop the ultimate travel booking engine. Each of these entities play an important role in the process and any flight reservation system should meet each of their individual needs. To serve today's growing number of consumers who use their mobile device to purchase travel products as well as those that switch between devices during the research and booking process, many companies are building applications that use responsive technology. Now, regardless of the type of device a customer uses to access a website, online applications built using responsive technology can automatically adjust the screen layout based on the type of device being used. And for those looking to have a dedicated Mobile App, there are several companies designing and developing custom mobile Apps. Some offer mobile applications as an optional "add-on" to an existing Booking Engine while others develop the Apps independently. Either approach can provide the online consumer the ease and mobility of using their smart phone or tablet. Mobile technology is not just for big brand names either.

Travel technology companies can now provide any size travel agency affordable applications built on the latest technology with the powerful tools to they need to compete with any size travel business. Finding a flight reservation system with the right combination of options for your travel business can be a critical decision. Finding a technology partner that will help you reach today's mobile consumer where and how they shop for travel can be just as important.