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Monday, 2 December 2013

Selecting the Right Technology Platform


The travel market is continuously getting competitive with new organizations entering the market. Thus, travel service providers are in search of new avenues to capture consumer markets for better revenue returns. Travel technology is however perceived by many a novel way through which companies can not only expand their business, but simplify the tasks and also better serve the consumers. There are travel technology companies that are adding more value in this quickly changing travel industry. To be at par with the competition, it is important to develop good business model along with choosing the right technology.

To expand, optimize and manage the business, it is important to consider a few factors about the technology that you have selected for your business. Below we have mentioned some of the features that make a technology fit for your business:

Switching to a cloud based technology is the best way to automate the entire process and reduce operational cost to a great extent. Instead if purchasing or setting up service infrastructure, the travel providers can take this service from their technology providers. As the technology providers maintain and update the software according to the latest developments, the travel operators also stay updated with the most recent market trends.

Valuable, User-Friendly Sales Channel
No matter whether you are a travel agency owner, running a hotel or dealing in rented cars, you must rely on a few sales channels like internet booking engine, B2B dashboard and call center etc. These help expand your business by reaching new consumer markets. However, while selecting any of these sales channels, the service providers must consider making these user-friendly; customers would never like a booking engine which is complex and full of features that the use might not understand well.

Easily Accessible and Flexible Technology
“One shoe doesn’t fit all”! This proverb is exactly true in terms of technology too. No two organizations have the same needs and thus what technology works for a particular company might not work the same way for the other. Moreover, to fit the changing consumer requirements, it’s important to deploy technology which is flexible enough to match the standards.

Online booking is a crucial part of any hotel, airline or consolidator business. Thus it is important to consolidate the business with a central booking handling interface. A good travel management system should have strong back office tool that can be easily integrated with the booking engine and third-party tools. Additionally, it also needs to have additional features to manage other components and attributes of the business. With the help of a customer relationship management service, you can easily maintain customer details and minimize the manual hassles.

Backend Support
In travel business, the most stressful work is to manage the back office. From maintaining customer details to answering customer’s quarries, everything has to be streamlined in order to make the organization function smoothly. Technology can be of great savor to minimize back office management hassle. There are tools that address the requirements of customers and business associates by bringing them all important information to their fingertip.

Security is Paramount
To safeguard company data as well as the details of the customers is one of the most important things that companies should consider first. A secure payment gateway on the online sales channels ensures total protection to your customer’s monetary details along with creating a bond of trust between the two parties.

Technology has made our lives easy than ever before. On the contrary, a wrong selection might have an adverse impact on your business. Thus, it is always suggested to do an in-depth research before choosing a technology service provider for your travel business.