XML Booking Engine Option

Decades ago, a good retail location with plenty of foot traffic and a few newspaper advertisements featuring special offers were enough to drive customers into your agency. The online revolution has dramatically altered this reality, changing the way consumers shop for everything, including their travel arrangements. The booking solution a travel business chooses is a key element of its operations and must support the larger overall company strategy. A review of your current systems and processes will help you find the solution that’s right for your business.

Do you need an “out of the box” fully hosted booking engine that uses standard templates with customized headers, footers as well as colors and fonts? Or are you looking to customize the booking engine templates yourself with an XML Booking Engine?

A good place to start may be reviewing your existing customer base and determining how you might serve them better or offer them additional services. After all, research has proven that it is less expensive to sell to an existing customer and avoid the additional resources required to secure a new customer. For example, have you considered adding a hotel option to your travel booking engine for those customers using your air booking engine? What about a packaging engine that can book a Cruise and then add other travel products such as air, hotel accommodations or even activities during and around the Cruise dates? Do you know how your customers prefer to make their travel arrangements? This is an important question to answer if you want to make sure the travel booking engine you choose will access the distribution channels you need to serve your customers.

Most call center applications give Agents the tools they need to research the best options and quickly assist customers on the phone or visiting their agency. Mobile-ready applications allow consumers to research and book options online at their convenience. It is all about consumer choice today and your business must be ready with a travel booking solution that is ready to serve today’s mobile consumer. An XML Booking Engine can even be used to expand your reach further by interfacing your booking engine with the various metasearch sites in the market.

Once you have determined the specific content to include and the various distribution channels you need to access, it’s time to consider your technology options. Will a simple out of the box solution work for you or does your business need something a little more customized? For those looking to design and control the layout of their booking solution, an XML Booking Engine may be the best solution. It allows you to host all of the Booking Engine’s User Interfaces on your own servers while using the XML connection for business logic as well as live pricing, availability & booking. This simple XML interface can combine multiple sources into a single interface, eliminating the need to maintain multiple connections if you work with a host agency or consolidator as well as using your own agency credentials with the Supplier.

Finding a travel booking engine with the right combination of options for your business can be a critical decision. Finding a technology partner that drives efficiency through innovation can be even more important.

Travel Agent Software Options

Travel Agents have always been a key part of the travel industry since the beginning and have been evolving the way that they interact with both suppliers and consumers along with the rest of today’s retailers. Travel agent software such as airline booking engines, hotel booking engines, and even cruise booking engines was introduced into the market decades ago and have been evolving ever since. The online revolution and transition to e-commerce have been a crucial step for many agencies and a necessary change for them to remain in business. As a result, the online booking engines available today provide agents and their customers the ability to easily book just about anything from an airline ticket, a hotel reservation or even a packaged cruise vacation.

With just a few mouse clicks, today’s travel agent software can access the information agents need to research which hotel best meets their customer’s individual needs. For example, users can narrow the search for a hotel to a specific neighborhood within a city, the hotel star rating or a specific price range. You can even research whether a specific hotel property has a restaurant or room service available. Air travel searches can be done specifically to an airline, the time of day or even a specific class of service. Online searches for cruise vacations can be made specific to a sailing region such as Alaska or the Mediterranean, for a specific cruise line or cruise ship and even by the length of the cruise. Rich content such as Cruise ship and cabin photos along with detailed descriptions are integrated into the booking engine to help agents and customers make the right choice. Users can even select which seating time option they prefer for dinner or alert the supplier of a special need or occasion such as a passenger’s birthday or anniversary.

Different types of clients may have different requirements for their individual online booking engine. For example, the booking solution an agency may need to serve its corporate clients can be dramatically different from one they use for leisure travel customers. Corporate travel policy may dictate which specific airline, class of service or routing can be used based on an individual’s position within the company for example. Or there may be corporate travel policies to consider the limit to which hotel chains can be used or the type of room that can be booked. While those serving leisure travelers may look for a tool that’s somewhat less restrictive in some ways but perhaps searches multiple content sources to ensure they get the best price available for the flight or hotel they choose. The travel agent software available today can help automate processes while increasing revenues regardless of whether a travel agency serves corporate accounts or leisure clients.

Just as the case with much of the travel industry, consolidation has forced many travel agencies to merge or form new, closer affiliate relationships. The ability to expand the distribution of your agency’s airfares to affiliated agencies quickly and easily can be a powerful tool in today’s competitive airfare market. And while many agencies are joining Agency Consortia and forming new alliances, many want to continue to maintain their individual agency’s unique brand with their customers. Finding the right travel agent software with the tools your agency needs to compete can be critical to your business. Finding a technology partner that drives efficiency through innovation can be even more important.

Airline Reservation System Options

Finding the right online airline reservation system with access to the content you need for your travel business can be a difficult and confusing process for even the most experienced professional. There are several types of travel booking engines available in the market today to consider. Some offer specific travel products such as airline or hotel reservations and many provide the ability to target multiple selling channels such as Business to Business, Business to Consumer and even Business to Business to Consumer. 

The more advanced mobile ready booking solutions are built using innovative responsive technology that automatically adjusts the booking engine display to fit the type of device being used. This allows any User of the application to easily view and navigate through the booking process regardless of the device they are using.   There is even a state of the art mobile apps available that allow you to expand your brand’s presence to handheld devices. Understanding how your customers prefer to plan their travel arrangements along with some research on the different options available will help identify the right type of airline reservation system for you.

But finding the right online booking engine to serve all the different distribution channels you need is only part of the answer. 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 as the booking engine functionality is to the success of your business.

Many travel agencies choose one of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) to check availability and confirm airline reservations. Accessing fares and availability via a GDS using an Agency’s specific ID provides Users to access to published airfares available in the market as well as any private or negotiated fares an agency may have. If you plan for your booking engine to use your GDS ID to make bookings, you’ll want to find a technology partner who can connect the booking engine you choose with your Agency’s GDS ID.

Many agency owners choose to align themselves with an air consolidator in order to gain access to the lower, preferential airfares these airline aggregators can negotiate. By consolidating sales from several smaller agencies, many air consolidators can drive significant volumes with airlines.  This allows them to negotiate discounted private airfares as well as preferential fare rules and better commissions on published airfares. Some air booking engines even have the ability to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best price, allowing an agency’s airline reservation system to combine their own agency GDS content with fares and content from other sources such air consolidators and 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 a technology partner that drives efficiency through innovation can be even more important.