>> Are you looking for Online Booking Engine? : Get in touch with our team

Our Travel Booking Tools ensure that all steps of your travel handled fully and transparently. Our Online Booking Tool (OBT) provides companies with the opportunity to efficiently book business trips and manage all related processes. This approach facilitates transparent coordination, management, and visualization of the entire business travel process.  We provide you with an easy-to-use business travel management software and help you automate your processes and travel costs.

Our Travel processes are technically and comprehensively mapped, managed and streamlined. The process here ranges from the scheduling of travel to reporting. Using the Online Booking Tool, or offline, travelers or travel arrangers may book their trips online. Each reservation is transferred directly to the system, which means that the various workflow management options can be used by all those involved.

More consolidation means less competition

We have often been asked how we are planning to position ourselves as a new player in the arena. Our simple answer is that the market is big and can handle more than just a few “top dogs”. The bottom line is that the takeover will result in fewer competitors in the market. What’s more, there are hardly any “newcomers” in this market and the big players are consolidating on the basis of older technologies. There couldn’t be a better starting position.

The new developments come as no surprise as we actually expected them to happen much sooner. Technology is and remains the central element in the travel sector. It allows the players to set themselves apart from the competition and gauge the playing field more easily. It is therefore surprising that some TMCs are only now beginning to offer their own technology. To date, they have been heavily dependent on the GDS providers rather than creating their own added value.

Flexibility is the key

In order to maintain their long-term role in the ever-changing market, new travel technologies must be versatile. In addition, our technology is driven by middleware, which means that the entire business logic can be found in the middleware and the look and feel can be changed individually. It allows us to support desktops of agents, online booking platforms and app front ends as well as the new gimmicks like chatbots or virtual agents.

Many of the big players carry a lot of baggage around and are still ahead of them on this route. Therefore, the stress is the product of market growth itself rather than the competitive situation: the uncertainty (direct connections, country-specific rail traffic, ancillary services, etc.). The dynamics of the market must be implemented again and again on a technical level. This is why we avoid long-term planning when handling our projects according to market conditions and customer needs in a dynamic manner.

Virtual agents will win

We expect a high demand for modern online booking tools that are not only a carbon copy of travel services like Expedia, but also provide the business with substantial added value. Despite embracing the digital age and virtualization, the business travel market is booming: in North America and Western Europe alone, $619 billion was spent in 2015.

A trending topic I expect has a bright future and we are also working on is chatbots, digital agents that will take over the role of humans in the near future. The task is to rapidly process a large quantity of data and sort out the essential information.

Websites and apps are slowly losing relevance

My vision is that we will no longer use websites to book travel in two or three years. It’s crazy that I get an appointment I need to put in my calendar, so I need to get to a website, put in my travel dates there, find the right travel information, make the reservation and then put it back in my calendar.

>> Are you looking for Online Booking Engine? : Get in touch with our team

We’re going to tell Alexa, Siri or Cortana to find the right hotel and so on.

I know that many businesses are wondering what the best website looks like at the moment. Although many designers may have better answers to this question, perhaps it’s the wrong question. It would have been the right thing to do a couple of years ago to settle on a great look and feel. Investing and trying to compete on the look and feel basis on a browser-based website today, however, could be a waste of money given the loads of Echos and similar devices around the corner.

Even applications will soon become obsolete. Some of the most popular apps use text only, for example WhatsApp. With over three billion active users per month (almost 1⁄2 of the world’s population), messaging apps have surpassed social networks. It’s solid. It’s powerful. It’s simple. But from a designer’s perspective, the user interface is not that good but everybody uses it because it’s convenient.

The post New Generation Online Booking Tools appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Are you looking for a Travel Concierge Service? : Get in touch with our team

Hospitality Industry’s technology has come a long way. Big companies in the industry have kept up with the times by adopting CRM systems and POS software, and are now dealing with the incremental introduction of AI, IoT and IOV to revolutionize the way they communicate with consumers. 

Concierge services in the hotel industry are also changing a lot and innovation is impacting them. In concierge services, automation is slowly but steadily making its way, changing a lot of customer behavior and dynamics of service providers.Most hotels are introducing creative technological solutions to make the front desk experience of their guests more comfortable and hassle-free to avoid long queues and to be more casual and welcoming without the physical and digital gap generated by reception desks. All major global hotel businesses are moving in that direction.

A new concept of concierge

The truth of the matter is that today the internet, mobile apps, social media, review sites, online booking platforms give guests the ability to do local searches and take care of bookings and service requests on their own, turning each traveler into a professional concierge. That’s why this digital revolution will cause hospitality services to shift. 

Simply speaking, innovation has changed everything around the concierge, but at the same time, it has allowed industry operators to maintain momentum by taking advantage of the opportunities provided by digital and mobile devices. All of these innovations can facilitate concierge work, allowing them to spend less time on administrative/bureaucratic tasks and more time on human interaction and focus on the needs and desires of customers.

Challenges for the Concierge Service providers

Demand for travel concierge services is growing significantly, as increasing numbers of banks and credit card companies are providing travel services to attract customers and increase loyalty, particularly among the big spenders.The scope and importance of travel concierge services will rise as disposable income, card spending and millennial traveling increases.

Nevertheless, organizational inefficiencies and lack of technology adoption hamper the growth of this sector. Companies providing travel concierge services are affected by issues such as slow turnaround time in customer response, manual bookings, accounting and reconciliation errors, and lack of reporting capabilities to help them keep tabs on their business. Also, their customers are increasingly requesting self-serve B2C portals to allow their premium customer/loyalty program members to make online reservations.

Introducing Travel Concierge Solutions

PROVAB TECHNOSOFT has developed a comprehensive travel platform with interfaces for both concierge employees and end customers, as well as a back & mid-office system for booking management and business automation.It is a seamless platform for travel planning and collaboration that improves concierge efficiency and provides consumers with a top-notch experience. It produces accurate reports and allows centralized monitoring of transactions.

Benefits of Travel Concierge Providers

Client specific marketing

Greater Customer Satisfaction

Shorter Response Time

Increased Productivity for the Concierge

Accurate Reporting

Easier and Quicker Quote Sharing

Better Marketing & Promotions

Higher Conversion rate

Better Concierge-Client Communication

Eliminates Manual Booking Entries

Improved Revenue Management

Better Markups and Commissions Tracking

Features of our Back Office Module

The Travel Concierge Solution includes a powerful Back & Mid-office Module which facilitates the configuration of business and other key business processes including the management of portals, transactions, reward programs, employees, accounting, reporting, etc. The key features are as follows:

Advance business and pricing features for efficient revenue management

Promotions module which allows for delivery of intelligent promotions with business rules and availability criteria

Supplier and Customer Accounting

Ability to manage supplier-specific business rules from a single admin interface

Versatile Booking Management System

Management of both web and mobile bookings Ability to configure markup exceptions

Creates Custom Business Reports for all business needs

>> Are you looking for a Travel Concierge Service? : Get in touch with our team

To sum up, it seems that the human factor is still very relevant, even though the technology is increasingly being used in hotel concierge services. Also, a growing number of travelers are preferring destinations where they can turn off technology and the modern world in search of a kind of virtual detox that rewards human contact. There are even hotels advertising the fact that they offer free wifi stays, so it is quite clear that technology is still not capable of replacing a good concierge service completely.

But what’s the concierge’s future like? It’s hard to say yet. For the moment, the only certain thing is that humans and technology can not only coexist in the delivery of concierge services, but if combined smartly, they can offer great business opportunities to hoteliers and offer extremely high quality of service and personalization to hotel guests.

The post The impact of Technology on Travel Concierge Services appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Looking for A Booking Software : Request A Quote

Below are some of the most progressive technologies, which are coming out to play in the field of eTravel services in 2020. It will help you go with the tides of the latest industry tendencies and navigate freely amid the intricacies of the present-day digital travel ecosystem.

Recognition Technology 

The high-tech technology of recognition has a great potential for travel technology. Recognition Technology includes fingerprint, facial recognition, retina scanning or other biometric identification methods. The technology has been rolled out into the market some time ago and has already been deployed in a number of fields, primarily with the authentication, security or law enforcement aims.

The recognition technology, face recognition, in particular, has great potential for the industry of travel. The main spheres of the technology application are collecting data and identifying the personality of a traveler. It will allow the travel business stuff provide their clients with personalized services, reward them for being regular customers and grant them access to the associated services. It may be a gym or a pool, in a hotel, a special business lounge access from an airline, whatever.

Another essential purpose of the recognition technology is security. Face identification of the travelers with bad reputation can help the staff stay alert and be prepared to take measures whatever required.

Finally, the technology is particularly interesting for its possibility to takeout friction from lots of payment processes. It can make authorization quick and hassle-free. At the same time, it can automatically take into consideration all the bonuses, loyalty schemes or discount codes of the particular client.

Online Travel Booking 

Online travel booking is the service experiencing constant growth in the United States and Canada. The experts predict the expansion of the digital travel space and the online booking segment in 2019. Today most of all reservations in the sphere of traveling are made online, whether it’s accommodations, flights, tours or other journey-related activities. The travelers have now a perfect opportunity to review a great variety of deals on the web and choose the ones, which meet their needs, preferences, and expectations most.

Being a professional travel agent in United States and Canada, you can offer your customers to choose and book a tour on the web. As an air company  you can allow booking, purchasing and getting itinerary online. As a hotelier provide the possibility of room and extra facilities reservation through your site. You can just offer your clients the opportunity of booking and choosing services online and you will gain the majority of customers. Online services solve not only the problems of the users but help service providers as well.

Personalization 

Personalization is the biggest priority among the modern travel industry trends. To date, the majority of travelers worldwide admit that standard traveling process is not enough any longer. A personalized approach is now viewed more as an expectation than something extraordinary. People value the unique experience they can get, while on the go, no matter if it’s a holiday or a business trip. In fact, personalization has become the first priority among the modern trends in travel and tourism industry.

Some progressive brands have already started to introduce customized offerings and personalized services to their client Delta Flights, for instance, has already introduced account-specific messaging with corporate clients. It concerns their exclusive benefits. The flight attendants of Delta have recently got a Guest Service Tool. The device allows them to provide personalized services to corporate clients, including recognition, assistance, and even down-line flight and gate information.

More than that, the company is going to launch personalized sites for corporate customers. They will grant the travelers with account-specific access to all the Airline’s special offers for the most loyal clients.

To stand out in the modern market of travel services, one should be personal in the attitude to the customers, and add inherent value to what he offers to them. However, there is a challenge in capturing the necessary data and not to violate the principles of personal privacy. More than that, personalization requires sophistication, enthusiasm and technological solutions on part of the service provider, who aims to keep up with the most recent travel trends.

In case you are determined to offer your clients the most cutting-edge service, you should rely on expert tech solutions. Stfalcon is the very company, who has enough experience and expertise in the field of digital novelties for the traveling sphere. We at Provab Technosoft are eager to tailor the exquisite solution for you and your clients’ individual needs.

Voice technology 

Voice technology is a digital novelty disrupting the travel and hospitality sector. The human voice is the best and most effective means of communication and people want more convenience nowadays, whether it is connected with getting some information, making a reservation or adjusting something in your hotel room. Voice technology is an integral part of the other technologies entering the stage of the travel industry and it has much to do with personalization, artificial intelligence, and chatbots. Provab is reviewing all the latest travel tech trends to accordimate in their system. 

The main reason why an increasing number of hoteliers start introducing voice-activated devices at their hotels is the customers switch to voice interactions wherever it’s possible. Voice commands may be used for adjusting the hotel room settings to the individual needs of the guest, for the most up-to-date information provision, for the customer service purposes

>> Distribution Platform for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

Mobile Applications

Mobile applications are one of the most significant  digital trends that are easiest to implement. Travel and tourism industry overview for the recent years has shown that half of the online booking operations are mobile. Actually, this digital trend is the easiest to implement into the travel industry of contemporaneity. Mobile applications can not only facilitate the booking and reservation procedures but combined with the IoT — Internet of Things — Technology can allow hotel guests, for instance, control room appliances.

Promotional messages can be used as a part of the travel marketing strategy. Combined with a beacon technology, mobile apps are able to make them most relevant to the individual’s location and preferences. With 2019, trends and reviews Provab Technosoft knows for sure what trends should be taken into consideration for a perfect app design.

The post Travel Technology trends to look out for in the United States and Canada appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Looking for A Booking Software : Request A Quote

Traveler satisfaction and revenue connects airline needs. To satisfy customers, carriers seek ways to learn more about their clients and provide a set of additional services like baggage insurance or onboard food. Those services are also called ancillaries, and are offered for additional fees. Given the small margins for core transportation services, the fees help to generate profits. To sell ancillaries to the passengers and be more profitable airlines struggle to deliver personalized content to their travelers. Considering that getting in touch with the end user is nearly impossible via the channels provided by global distribution systems, a new standard emerged to resolve the issue.

New Distribution Capability will enable the travel industry to transform how air products are retailed to corporations, leisure and business travelers, by addressing the industry’s current distribution limitations: product differentiation and time-to-market, access to full and rich air content and finally, transparent shopping experience. ​​​​ 

The NDC standard enables the travel industry to transform how air products are retailed to corporations, leisure and business travelers, by addressing the industry’s current distribution limitations:

Product differentiation and time-to-market

Access to full and rich air content

Transparent shopping experience  

Airlines, travel management companies, online travel agencies, corporate buyers, global distribution systems and other technology players contribute to the NDC Standard. Through a collaborative approach, participants ensure that the supporting schemas are functional and can be used by all regardless of business focus, geographic location, size, target markets and individual commercial policies.

An industry standard will facilitate a more efficient airline distribution system, thereby benefiting airlines, agents, GDSs, IT providers and travel start-ups.

Structured around seven distribution-related functions, the NDC Standard provides the opportunity to address the end-to-end airline distribution process, e.g. shopping, booking etc., and to deliver enhanced customer experiences.​​​​

New distribution Capability is important because:

It provides personalized shopping experience and access to customer information. Currently, most of the customer personal data remain in the hands of middlemen, OTAs and GDSs. This means that airlines get just basic information about their clients, which doesn’t allow for personalizing the shopping experience, the thing that has become a standard in modern travel eCommerce. The NDC standard’s goal is to provide airlines with direct information about their customers.

There is content and pricing autonomy. Another benefit of personalization is pricing autonomy. Currently, most airlines publish their tariffs via ATPCO, the tech provider and main source of pricing data. Having a third party as an intermediary between revenue management and distribution channels means that airlines miss the opportunity of dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing is the ability to create personalized fare and travel package offers based on individual client information. The new XML standard allows airlines to build their own APIs and change prices independently adding value to their offers and adjusting prices individually to each customer.

The traditional GDS model only permits airlines to display prices and schedules. While tariff metasearch engines and OTAs make it easy for travelers to compare pricing, airlines can’t market their added value services and fully compete. Rich content, that includes all service details, solves this problem.

There is a reduced reliance on legacy systems. Most airlines use legacy passenger service systems (PSS) that contain reservation info, fares, and schedule. The main purpose of the PSS is to show which seats are available for a given flight. PSSs may have poor performance, a number of other restrictions, and most PSS providers really lag in modernization. NDC will act as a separate engine outside of legacy systems that allow for presenting data stored in PSS databases using airlines’ private interfaces.

The distribution system in the air travel industry includes many players in the field. To link end customers with the actual airline, there are a number of intermediaries, represented by travel agencies, tariff publishers, GDSs, and so on. Most of the major players appeared decades ago or morphed from the older formations and continue to exist.

Currently, representatives from nearly all parties in airline distribution have embarked on the NDC initiative one way or another. According to the latest IATA NDC program update, the list of certified deployments reached 65 carriers. The number seems to have grown significantly since 2017 when IATA reported only 50 airlines adopting NDC. But, compared to the overall number of airlines connected to the major three GDSs, which is over 400, NDC adopters seem to be a minority. In 2018 IATA published a presentation of NDC standards, that includes new data on the number of airlines adopting NDC and IT providers.

>> Distribution Platform for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

Major airlines managed to develop their NDC solutions, which sometimes differ in implementation. Here are some examples of airlines that adopted and implemented New Distribution Capabilities

Lufthansa was the first one to introduce a GDS surcharge and implement direct booking connection in its distribution. Currently, Lufthansa’s direct booking includes several distribution channels: travel agencies direct, aggregators, supplier mobile application, and supplier website. While its NDC version allows for offering rich content, the support of personalized bookings is still to be reached.

British Airways developed an NDC solution and integrated it with Kayak. Now their tickets are available directly through the Kayak platform. British Airways API allows for distributing through the following channels: direct connect through OTAs, IATA’s travel agents, GDSs, and online booking tools. Similar to Lufthansa’s API, British Airways doesn’t support personalized bookings yet.

Air Canada allows their API to be used freely across all channels. It seems that Air Canada presents the fullest range of NDC “advantages” for the moment, providing rich content, personalized bookings, airline profiles, air, and non-air related ancillaries.

Flydubai also has a competitive NDC implementation, being relatively equal to what Air Canada offers. The only difference is that Flydubai allows for distribution only through travel agencies and OTAs.

So, only a few among the NDC adopters have managed to present the full range of NDC benefits. Others are still establishing the connectivity between the distributors to get their direct channels to work.

The post New Distribution Capability, A game changer in Air Travel appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Looking for an Airline Booking Software : Request A Quote

The core components of a passenger service system are:

• Central reservation system
• Airline inventory system
• Departure control system

The passenger service system allows an airline to sell their inventory (seats) and contains information on schedules and fares as well as a database of reservations (or passenger name records) and of the issued tickets. 

The main function of the airline inventory system is to define how many seats are available on a particular airline by opening or closing an individual booking class in accordance with rules defined by the airline.

>> Looking for a Passenger Service System : Request A Quote

The departure control system is the system used by airlines and airports to check in a passenger. The departure control system is connected to the reservation system, enabling it to check who has a valid reservation on a flight.

The post Passenger Service System and its components appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Looking for an Online Booking Technology : Request A Quote

The companies’ requirements might be multifold as the company has invested much in their workforce and has to provide for the employees’ safety. Travel risk management should play a vital role in the travel booking system. The company also doesn’t want any employee to waste hours on extensively searching for their trip as it is not a family vacation, so choosing a business trip should be simple and easy. Many times, business trips are booked and then changed and changed again, along with associated

 rebooking fees, before they become an unused ticket. The company may want to add intelligence from previous trips to understand the cost of changes and better manage such a risk of added costs due to changes.

>> Looking for a travel booking system : Request A Quote

One of the drawbacks today of travel booking system is that the system is a one size fits all approach. Customizations of customer requirements are the way to go. Once we understand the company’s requirements for business travel booking system, we can customize the tool for the company’s interest, and the traveler satisfaction should come by itself. 

A happy traveler, a happy manager.

The post New Generation Internet Booking Engine for Business Travelers appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Online Booking System for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

There are two IATA initiatives known as New Distribution Capability (NDC) and One Order that are evolving. If successfully adopted by the airlines, these practical initiatives have the potential to transform the fragmented distribution process that is in place today. They offer airlines a clearly signposted path towards modern retailing by putting the customer and not the flight at the heart of their distribution strategies. There is a lot of jostling for position in the lucrative corporate passenger segment. To succeed airlines know they need to increasingly drive higher yields through higher non-seat ancillary revenue streams, which can build brand and loyalty. IATA’s vision for the indirect channel is to simplify the current airline distribution process and systems with a set of standards that will enrich the selling of the tickets at one end and streamline the customer record fulfilment and payment process at the other. 

NDC is an XML-based data transmission standard that seeks to address many of the limitations of the air travel industries current distribution channels. It’s a well-established data protocol that facilitates interchange of electronic information between airlines and travel agents. It helps airlines to deliver the same rich and dynamic content to agencies as on their own web site (including ancillaries). One Order builds on the standardized communication approach with a view to replacing the multiple and rigid booking, ticketing, delivery and accounting methods with a single and flexible order management process.

Thus closing the existing capability gap between their direct and indirect channels.

Adopting the new standards will allow airlines to sell what they want, when they want, to whom they want through all the channels. Not only will they be able to make better and more relevant offers, explain what is included in bundled pricing and what isn’t, but customers too can begin to pick and choose what they wish to pay for and what not. 

The benefits of IATA’s initiatives are very clear and powerful and a game changer for the industry. But what are these benefits and who stands to gain? Let’s take a quick look at IATA’s new distribution landscape and the stakeholders involved. We can see the key stakeholders involved in making NDC happen are the:

Airlines supplying the products and services

Intermediaries and aggregators (resellers),

Travel agents acting on behalf of Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and corporate buyers who purchase the travel trips

Travellers the ultimate customers making the trip.

So let’s take a closer look at what the potential benefits are of an NDC enabled retail environment for each of these groups:

For Airlines

NDC completely transforms their ability to merchandise their offers and take control. They can:

Distribute all their products, including ancillaries to agencies and travel management companies.

Offer value-added products and services when applicable, on the basis of personal information, should customers choose to disclose it

Display more details about their products (bundled and unbundled) including rich descriptions of differentiating facilities with media such as photographs, etc.

Increase innovation and differentiation opportunities by bringing new products faster to market, which helps differentiation

Take advantage of personalisation opportunities by delivering a shopping experience based on customer preferences

For Intermediaries / Aggregators

This represents a key step change in the way airline distribution works currently. Today the intermediary is a GDS who accesses inventory and fare databases to create the offer and then enables to book, pay, and issue a ticket. Those are complex and very diverse functions. For example, credit card payments are processed directly by the GDS, interacting with a payment service provider to authorize the payment. In an NDC environment the aggregator is solely transmitting both shopping and ordering requests to the airline host environment.

The concept of aggregation is a key component to NDC-based distribution model. The intermediary is an aggregator and its role is to transmit the information back and forth from the travel agent to the airline. Aggregators, do three things:

Determine which airlines to ask when receiving shopping requests from travel agents

Forward shopping and other requests to the relevant airlines

Consolidate the offer responses from airlines and present results to travel agents

They too benefit from NDC by having:

Access to the entirety of the airlines products and content, including ancillaries and promotional fares.

Access to dynamic pricing and product information

The ability to offer better comparison shopping for traveler based not just on price but also the perceived value of ancillaries.

The ability to provide tailored services based on a customer’s travel history and preferences, if they chose to be recognized.

>> Online Booking System for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

For the Travel Agent

Travel Agents are in fact the prime target audience for NDC. They represent the 50% plus portion of business that is still transacted through them. And as you know, it also represents an even higher percentage of their revenues as the type of itineraries that stick to the indirect channel tend to have higher face value (we estimate approximately 40% higher on average) as these tend to relate to corporate travel often with complex itineraries and long-haul travel.

Rich content view of travel options

Greater transparency of fares across providers

Ability to personalise offers based on context

Greater reporting capability

Simply put, for Travel Agents and TMC’s, NDC facilitates an increased transparency of travellers total spend. The premise of this is that instead of travel managers having access to the fare cost only, with the traveller then individually booking and expensing ancillary products, NDC allows all costs of a flight to be captured within the original booking.

For the Traveller

For reasons of saving time and money, travel expense management, contract negotiations and customer support corporations in particular continue to channel their staff travel needs through agents. The traveller and the company paying for his trip are prime beneficiaries of the new NDC merchandising world.

One of the biggest selling points of NDC is the facilitation of personalised fares. Giving airlines the ability to service travellers with a fully customer-centric approach, dynamically pricing and personalising their products. This means, if the traveller agrees, elements of personal information are released to airlines when the initial fare is searched. Airlines then return a fare considering these details. To an extent, this feature is already exercised when booking flight directly with an airline via their websites, where they are able to identify and engage their customers with specific offers based upon their previous journeys. For corporate travel managers this is a positive development as it encourages employees back to booking through their TMC rather than arguing that a more attractive fare is available direct.

The post Impact of New Distribution Capability on Travel Companies appeared first on Online Reservation System.

>> Mobile Air Booking System : Connect with Sales

Air Booking

Bookings through airline apps are on the rise, but while carriers are working to improve their functionality, opinions about the overall quality of the apps remain divided. Travelers either almost always or sometimes use a smartphone app to book flights. Meanwhile, mobile bookings account for between 20% and 25% of the airline’s total direct bookings. That number, is steadily increasing.

As the summer travel season officially gets under way, a growing number of Americans will use their smartphones and tablets to book a trip. This year, digital travel sales in the US will reach $189.62 billion, 40.0% of which will come from mobile devices. In its definition of travel sales, eMarketer includes airline, car rental, cruise, hotel, accommodations (including Airbnb) and transportation. There are two important milestones to watch for in the coming years: By 2019, digital travel sales will surpass $200 billion for the first time, and by 2020, mobile travel sales alone will surpass $100 billion. When it comes to booking travel on mobile devices, US adults are using smartphones much more heavily than tablets. This year, 57.5 million US adults will use a smartphone to book a trip, up 14.1% over last year. That represents 81.2% of all mobile travel bookers.

>> Online Booking System for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

Last-minute travel deals are helping to drive mobile sales, as consumers opt to book right away via their smartphones. Consumers are booking more travel on mobile due to larger smartphone screens, easier mobile payment methods and overall time spent habits shifting to mobile. Airlines, hotels and online travel agencies have made both apps and mobile websites easier to use. US adults are not just booking trips via mobile, but they are increasingly researching trips as well.

We need to ask ourselves why business travellers still prefer to book directly with their travel suppliers?

Always keen to bring value to their corporate customers, TMCs are focusing increasingly on their traveller experience. Having found gaps in solutions in the market, some TMCs are also successfully building user-friendly, market-focused solutions that are built around their customers’ requirements. Technology has enabled some of these TMCs to even integrate their online and offline environments to improve the user experience and increase agent productivity with some even offering more advanced platforms than the technology giants.

While corporate booking technology is evolving and developments in products and technology are moving faster than ever – is it a case that these corporate systems are simply struggling to keep up? Perhaps. We have seen that when an online system is able to offer complete content and replicate the consumer’s B2C experience, user adoption is high (up to 96% reported in some markets and systems). Conversely, when content is lacking or the booking process is cumbersome, market share shifts away, travellers book directly with their suppliers and Travel Managers are unable to keep an accurate record of spend and traveller whereabouts, which of course poses risks to the organisation’s travel programme.  

Technology providers today offer an evolving range of responses to this conundrum, with door-to-door travel being just one; the concept of the traveller being able to plan their journey from the moment they leave their house, right to the door of their meeting, encourages travellers to book their entire trip in one online booking system. Another approach is for technology platforms to send booking details for direct supplier bookings back to the TMC to capture spend and traveller tracking using the “Open Booking” concept. While the booking occurs outside of the corporate booking tool, the system still allows tracking of spend and reporting. Other suppliers are providing content hubs for third party suppliers, to “plug in” their content using API connectivity which opens further supplier content and reduces the development effort for the technology provider themselves.

The ever-increasing trend to have expense systems linked into the end-to-end trip process also delivers huge efficiencies to the corporation.  By offering a fully integrated expense system, adoption of the online booking tool also increases, offering a further benefit to the corporation. All things considered, there are a host of technology paths available, and the best route for travellers is perhaps not always clear.

Perhaps most notably, United unveiled what it called a “reimagined app” in January. Among the improvements was more seamless access to check-in. Once check-in is completed, flyers have an opportunity to have their boarding pass populate on the app’s home screen without selecting a boarding pass tab. Later during travel, the app is automatically updated to display onboard entertainment options, directions to connecting gates and information about what carousel the flyer should go to collect baggage. Last week, United won a Webby Award in the “business and finance” category for its revamped app. 

Hawaiian Airlines is another U.S. carrier that unveiled major app changes this year. Its new app, released in March, offers improved graphics, chat and real-time flight notifications. However, some reviewers on Apple’s app store have panned it for routing the ticket booking function back through the Hawaiian website. International airlines are also pouring resources into their apps and sometimes coming up with especially creative innovations. In September, for example, Dutch carrier KLM launched an augmented reality function on its app that enables customers to check if their carry-on bags meet the airline’s size requirements. Similarly, Spanish carrier Iberia unveiled an app feature that will tell customers whether bags can be carried on or must be checked, after customers scan the bags with their phones.

Airlines tend to focus their apps on several core functions: the planning and booking of flights, check-in, assistance in the case of a flight cancellation or other travel disruptions and loyalty program account management. Helping that traveler in a moment of crisis can earn loyalty and is a really important part of what the mobile app needs to be about.  A mobile payment service provider that focuses on the airline industry, said carriers have also stepped up the payment options they offer via apps. But he noted that airline app teams compete for funding with carriers’ other IT needs as well as with all manner of other needs. Companies are investing greatly into these mobile apps, but you can only do so much with competing agendas across the airlines.

The post Airline Bookings through Mobile Applications are on a rise appeared first on Online Reservation System.

More than 80 percent of all employee spending is related to business travel. Costs adds up, one trip at a time. Travel and entertainment (T&E) is typically the second or third largest controllable expense category, behind payroll and rent. Despite virtual technologies, face-to-face meetings are indispensable and business travel is integral to every organization. Our online booking tool provides a perfect solution in three dimensions: employee satisfaction, cost reduction and process optimization.

>> Business Travel Planning System for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

Employee satisfaction

For most business travelers, the support provided by the employer during the trip greatly influences the employer’s attractiveness. The functions that contribute to employee satisfaction are: 

Simple operation and simple processes 

User experience

Useful hints for the trip (weather, visas, safety, ground transportation etc.)

Hints on company rates and what these actually include

Poorly rated service providers are no longer listed for booking

Automatic services during the trip

Safety (respecting risk management)

Central hotline for questions or emergencies

Waiting list for preferred flights

Cost reduction

Cost reduction is travel is always possible as the prices always fluctuate. Here are some way’s cost reduction can be managed:

Contracts with service providers can be managed optimally daily (corporate contract management)

Easy-to-view, holistic price comparisons

Automatic management of results for compliance

Missed savings and their reasons displayed automatically

Unused ticket management

Lower transaction fees per booking

Increase in untouched bookings

Process optimization

Process optimization is where most indirect costs can be reduced. The potential for cost reduction is high for companies where employees travel a great deal. The process can be optimized through:

Worldwide tool with country-specific adaptations that can be managed and administered a centrally

Tailored process for travel management “end-to-end” or “door-to-door” and pre, during and post trip

Efficient booking through reduced search times

Simple approval process and travel cost settlement

Quicker process, thanks to integrated process and present data

Automatic services (automatic exchange, automatic max. number of employees on plane cap, someone file finishing)

Integration into existing systems (HR, accounting)

Illustration of company-specific workflows

All data is automatically considered in the booking process (e.g., frequent flyer cards)

No, redundant data retention

The importance of travel policies

It’s critical for a company to develop a method of influencing its employees travel spending. That’s where a travel policy comes into the picture. A company travel policy lays down ground rules that ensure employees’ trips are safe and cost-effective. Well-designed travel policies also take the guesswork out of trip planning by answering employees’ most common questions about the where, what, and when of travel:

Where

Where should employees go to book their trips? Are employees required to book using a corporate booking tool, such as Concur? Or, are they permitted to shop online and book on a site of their choice?


What

The basic objective of a travel policy is to define what types of flight and hotel purchases are considered in policy. Does your company have discounted rates with any preferred hotels or airlines and, if so, are employees required to use them?

Alternatively, can they choose a different option if it’s less expensive? Travel policies should also cover topics like business class vs. coach and recommended hotel star class. With the ever-expanding set of ancillary fees charged by hotels and airlines, it’s more necessary than ever for travel policies to say what expenses are permitted.


When

Since prices increase closer to the trip date, it’s common for companies to require employees to get special pre-approval for last-minute bookings. Highlighting advance booking requirements encourages employees to plan ahead.

Why travel policies create friction

A travel policy should create guidelines for employees to follow, not extra hoops for them to jump through. Tighter rules around travel can reduce instances of overspending, but they can also burden employees by forcing them to spend more time planning their trips and to settle for undesirable flights and hotels.

Between booking a trip and submitting expense reports, employees often find that their work-related travel entails a considerable amount of work in its own right. Asking employees to make sense of the fine print of a company travel policy only adds to their headaches. The truth is that cutting travel costs is never as simple as announcing a new spending cap. It’s notoriously difficult to enforce travel policies, since most managers are less than eager to censure an employee for non-compliant purchases (let alone deny the employee’s reimbursement request).

Normal price considerations don’t apply when the person going on a trip isn’t the same one paying. The fundamental problem is one of “other people’s money.” Employees have little incentive to choose low-cost flights, hotels, trains, and rental cars: they quite understandably prioritize factors such as comfort, convenience, or existing brand loyalty.

Corporate travel often takes on an adversarial dynamic, with companies attempting to push down on costs, and employees pushing right back.

>> Travel Planning System for Travel Agency : Connect with Sales

Travel management is about travelers

Controlling costs is a primary objective of travel management, but not the only one. The rules and procedures a company develops for travel should contribute to employee productivity and well-being. In practice, this means: Making trip planning quick and convenient, either by providing booking support (e.g. a corporate travel agent, dedicated online booking tool, administrative assistance), or by granting employees the flexibility to book their own trips where they find it to be most convenient.

Preventing complications related to policy compliance and trip reimbursement by giving clear guidance on acceptable spending.

Balancing cost-control and comfort by allowing employees a reasonable range of options for their flights, hotels, and rental cars.Business travelers aren’t hardwired to spend as much as possible. They’re not rogue decision makers who need to be contained, but they are busy. Keep your company’s travel rules simple. Ask employees about pain points they encounter — time-consuming booking, restricted flight and hotel options, confusing reimbursement policies — and focus on those first.

Aligning interest

Traditionally, travel policies have been thought of as an instrument to prevent overspending. A new paradigm goes farther by actually encouraging saving. Google created the template for modern travel management with its Trips program. Google employees get a budget before every one of their business trips, and if they come in under budget, they earn credits to redeem on future travel upgrades. Googlers are motivated to save today so they can splurge tomorrow. Employees get custom trip budgets based on available rates and the parameters of their company’s travel policy. In addition to this data-based estimate of what their trips should cost, employees also get a real incentive to spend less, because they keep half of the savings they generate when they beat their budgets.

When employees have a material incentive to use low-cost options, they start spending as carefully on their business travel as they would on their personal travel. They do things like fly coach instead of business class, choose flights based on price instead of frequent flyer miles, book three star hotels instead of four, use Airbnb, or even stay with friends or family. A positive approach to travel management has the potential to reduce overall costs while giving employees greater control over their trips. By thinking of business travel as a team effort rather than a potential source of conflict, companies can help both their balance sheet and their organizational culture.

The post Business Travel Planning and Travel Policies appeared first on Online Reservation System.

Check-in is an important and the first procedure for an airport passenger, as passengers are required by airline regulations to check-in at certain moments before a flight departs. The airline check-ins are one of the main functions for the airline, it is also important to check and screen the luggage that goes into the aircraft for the passenger as well as the security of the airport.

>> Looking for an Airline Reservation System? : Connect with Sales

Mobile check-in

By keying on a website on the browser of the mobile phone or downloading a specialized application, you can access the check-in function. Then the method is comparable to what one would expect when using a personal computer to check-in.

Some airlines give a mobile boarding pass to a mobile device that can be checked at the airport during safety checks and boarding at the end of the portable check-in cycle. Others, however, send a barcode electronic confirmation that can be submitted to the employees at check-in or checked at the kiosks to the check-in process.

Traveling is supposed to be a time when you get to let your hair down and relax. It is meant to be de-stressing and joyful. However, often the task of managing a vacation or creating its arrangements becomes daunting. To make things easier, convenient and tension-free, travel portals were developed. Travel portals are internet booking management services that enable you to create reservations on a single platform for hotels, vehicles, buses, airlines, etc. It brings clients and travel service providers together. With a travel portal, one can manage a huge number of travelers with relative ease and simplicity.

These online reservation management systems are created with the latest, cutting edge technology in the software arena. Countless companies are making such software, however, for creating a reliable and popular travel portal, you can only rely on the best. The latest travel technology software created by our company for making online reservation management systems has been designed by some of the brightest minds in our software development team. They are immensely qualified, with great expertise and experience in this arena. They have carried out research to assess the travel tools and technology clients look for or expect to see in an ideal travel portal. Based on this research we have come up with a travel technology software that is best in its class. This latest travel technology software is also very simple to use, high on privacy and security and comes with a user-friendly interface.

Our latest travel technology software comes with some of the most amazing and unique features that will allow you to manage multiple sales channels such as B2C, B2B travel portal, B2B2C, and B2B2B. It will also enable them to offer multiple services such as Flights, Hotels, Package, Cars, Insurance, Sightseeing and Transfers through their online portal. The travel technology software we provide can be integrated with GDSs and third party suppliers for hotels, sightseeing, etc. It is an all in one suite to automate your travel agency operations to scale up with agility, flexibility, and elasticity.

Our travel booking software has been tested to ensure that we deliver scalable solutions for growing your business. With a customer base of more than 60 and worldwide integrations with 80 plus suppliers, our software has proven its mettle. Our software will help you streamline your business processes, optimize revenue and enhance the customer service experience.

>> Looking for an Airline Reservation System? : Connect with Sales

Travel applications have contributed majorly to saving a lot of time for a traveler by letting them book the entire vacation in a matter of a few mins. Travel portal development firms are the main contributing factor that makes traveling much easier for individuals seeking adventure.

The flight reservation system is the way to the modern, scalable and robust architecture of reserving a flight. The most dominant issue that an airline face is the pressure of cost-cutting which slows down the entire growth of the airline industry. The success of the airline depends on two factors, one is the travelers and second is the technology used to book a flight.

As a part of the travel company, you must hire professionals that can help you build a competitive application for flight. A credible development firm for a travel software that helps you create a well-organized software for flight booking. A proper FRS (flight reservation system) is the reason for a sustained travel business. This helps customers to reserve flights in a matter of a few minutes hence, it becomes an important aspect of travel.

Here are a few elements to consider when constructing your travel agency software. Offer online payment features with options: Let your users pay as per their comfort, not yours. All airline systems usually give payment, but some may be very restricted. As a travel company, you need to ensure the safety of customer’s information and make sure that the software supports all kinds of payment gateways.

Blending with designs

There are always two sides of the coin. Similarly, you must make sure that your mobile app designs and features should match your travel agency website designs too. The theme should preferably be the same and should provide almost the same information on both platforms.

Avoiding few features

Some of the applications ask its customers to register first which means a form where one has to fill details that is a time-consuming task. In the internet world, everyone wants fast service, avoid adding such features. Your users should be able to make a quick booking regardless of a new customer or an old one.

Trying out a demo

It is important to try out a demo before choosing a flight booking system. Different companies use different technologies to provide you with a customized solution. However, some companies might design the app exactly the way you want it to be based on your taste and preference.

Avoiding cyber crimes

The more digitized the world is becoming the more we need to be careful. With the quantity of internet presence, cyber dangers have also increased. Ensure that you use the best available technologies to provide the best safety you need.

GDS based System

To provide your users with global airline information for availability and pricing, a GDS (Global Distribution System) is a must. Using the API (Application Programming Interface) to enable customers to get flight information in real-time.

A proper business model helps to build a great flight booking system which can further help in building an advanced and effective booking engine which can help in the increase of website and online travel agency application traffic. The whole concept is to make consumers whoever visits the portal or downloads the app more comfortable. Quick bookings, confirmation notifications for better security and greater mobility.

The post Travel apps save a lot of time for travelers and have many benefits appeared first on Online Reservation System.