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.

Offer Your Best Deals When, Where And To Who You Want

With the Holiday shopping season here, it’s impossible to ignore the messages constantly bombarding us with offers of deep discounts and special promotions. With so many special offers and discounts available online today, it can be difficult for any size business to keep up and compete. Consumers expect to receive the best value possible for their money and nothing can drive traffic to your website more than an exclusive, targeted online promotion or sale. Today’s online travel business needs the flexibility to define Business Rules that target promotions to any number of specific parameters in order to succeed.

Can your Travel Booking Engine properly handle special sale events like Happy Hour Specials, Early Booking Bonuses or a Last Minute Sale? How about a Black Friday Sale or a Cyber Monday Special? Since these types of Sale events occur on a specific day or time, flexibility in timing promotions and special sales for exactly when you want to extend the offer can be crucial to the success of a promotion.

The world of online commerce continues to evolve rapidly and your online travel booking needs to keep pace or your business will be left behind. Many of today’s Travel Booking Solutions come with the basic Revenue Management Tools that allow for the product price to be adjusted up or down by Supplier for example, but is this enough considering today’s “ Sale Crazy World”? Travel Booking Solutions also need the ability to easily adjust a product’s selling price and value add offers based on the specific day or time of day that a booking is made. Offers can even vary based on a specific set of travel dates, the travel supplier used, the number of days before departure or even the passenger’s age. What about offering a lower price on your website to drive consumers to this cost effective channel to research and make their bookings? Or perhaps you want to charge a service fee when clients use an agent in a call center? 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.

Managing all these criteria with your online booking solution can be complicated unless your application has an advanced Rules Engine to help you quickly and easily manage all these parameters in a single place.

Even parameters like length of trip, origin city and class of service used can impact the price a customer pays and your online travel solution should allow you to define, manage and enforce these Rules quickly and easily. A little time researching and understanding the extent that a Travel Booking Engine can accommodate these different types of business rules can save a travel business an enormous amount of time when it comes to managing it’s online business and can actually help increase sales in the process.

So the time you spend doing a little research to find the right booking engine for your business can save you time and money in the long run and provide you the ability to quickly and easily offer your best deals when, where and to who you want.

Are You Accessing The Best Airfares?

The business of selling airline tickets today is more competitive than ever and agency owners are constantly looking for ways to access the best airfares. Airlines have reduced the standard commission they pay travel agents for published airfares over the past few decades which has forced many travel agents to change the way they do business. Some agencies have given up selling airline tickets all together and now focus on other areas of travel. Those that continue to focus on selling airline tickets have been forced to implement changes to operate their business on lower profit margins and find ways to access the lowest airfares in the market.

Some are able to charge the customer a service fee in exchange for their expertise and service. This is a good example of when the right online Flight Booking Engine can be a valuable tool to define how and when service fees are charged. With the right booking engine, agencies are able to provide today's traveler the industry expertise that only a travel professional can offer combined with the ease and convenience of promoting special offers or added value online.

Other agency owners have looked to Air Consolidators to access the best fares for their Flight Reservation System since many airlines offer reduced Negotiated or Private Fares to Air Consolidators that book high volumes of tickets with them. These fares are usually priced below those made available to the general public and provide the Consolidator and agent the ability to mark up the fares with a service fee and still be competitive with published fares. Some Consolidators even offer a Flight Booking Engine for affiliated agents to cost effectively research and book these reduced airfares online. This can be a “Win/Win” situation for both since the agent is able to offer their customers access to lower airfares while increasing the Consolidator's overall sales volume further with the airline. This incremental sales volume not only helps the Consolidator increase their overall sales revenue, but it also improves the Consolidator's negotiation power further with the airlines in some cases.

Air Consolidators can be a great source to access these low fares and many focus on a specific geographic market or ethnic group. Many travel agents may choose to work with several different Air Consolidators simultaneously and will choose the best Consolidator for a specific market. In some instances an agency may want to designate a certain Consolidator when booking a certain airline. Others may want to check a Consolidator just for possible lower Private Fares and use their own agency's GDS for Published fares. These are just some of the options that can be quite beneficial and cost effective ways to find the lowest airfare available in the market. This is where a Flight Reservation System needs to provide the powerful, flexible tools that allow the agency to control specifically how and when multiple simultaneous searches are performed.

So whether you decide to work with a Consolidator or not, choosing the right Flight Booking Engine can be crucial to the success of your travel business.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. So whether you decide to work with a Consolidator or not, choosing the right Flight Booking Engine can be crucial to the success of your travel business.

Can One Type Of Booking Solution Serve All Customers?

All online booking engines are not created equal. Today's online booking solution needs to be a mobile booking engine with flexibility in how business rules are applied and where content is sourced. It is also becoming increasingly important for many successful online retailers to have greater control in customizing their travel booking engine's user interface and overall branding.

Let's face it, the internet is full of websites with online booking solutions, many of which look the same and access the same exact content as the others. So how can your travel agency compete and succeed in the crowded online travel marketplace? One way is by offering something different or extra to your customers and incorporating that distinguishing factor into your overall branding.

Online travel booking engines are designed to reduce the time and effort required to complete a booking by automating much of the process. Many of the air booking engines available in the market today offer live access to airline pricing and availability to be sure the most up to date information is used as well as live booking capability to book an airline seat on the spot. However, finding an affordable booking solution that protects your businesses unique brand identity can be a challenge.

The typical "out of the box" online booking engine provides some minimal capability for customization or branding. Some offer the ability to change booking engine elements like headers, footers or even the colors and font used. Others provide the ability change certain features in the template such as adding a customer or membership number, an additional phone field or even a promotional code input box depending upon your specific business needs. Complete private label versions are also available where you can design the complete layout of the booking engine to meet your specific requirements.

There are even XML Booking Engine options for those business owners who want to completely control their own User Interface while taking advantage of the powerful business logic and connections to multiple content sources that an established online booking engine can provide. More than just a "Live connection", an XML Booking Engine can help your business take full advantage of powerful administrative features such as the ability to easily mark up or mark down selling fares and include "value add" offers in the display.

Robust reporting capabilities that can help you easily track and analyze your business are often available. And some XML Booking Engines offer the ability to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best airfare. There are even a few that can serve as a tool for clients to integrate their own negotiated airfares into some of the most popular online meta search engines. And remember to consider a mobile booking engine so that no matter what device your customers use to research and eventually book their travel plans, your booking engine will be available and ready to help you serve them.

A little research will go a long way when you're looking for the best booking solution to serve all your customers.