Whether you are on inbound or outbound travel and tourism company or you are selling tickets and travel products on behalf of major travel suppliers, you need to be online. OTA in general is represented by large travel agencies who are selling travel products from across the globe. Such OTA are either connected to GDS system or individual airlines from long time. Travel startups who want to start this online business in competent to all the large travel management companies, can build their own online reservation system with any travel product with the help of travel technology company.

Now the question comes:

How to start an online travel agency?

Here are few steps:

1. Modules: First you have to decide which all modules you want to have in your travel agency website

Flight?  Hotel?  Car? Transfers? Vacations? Bus? Cruise? Forex, Visa, Insurance Etc…

These are just basics. If you have something else to be added like safaris or events you can add that.

2. Suppliers: Now, these contents / services can be brought in your website by either having a CMS system for whatever services contents you have or you can just integrate the XML / API to get the contents from third party suppliers. Choose the right set of travel API for every travel product that you want to sell. Apart from that there are many other APIs, so if you have any personal choice you can suggest which will enhance the User Experience – UX

3. Business Model: Once you choose modules for your website, you can define the business model. Choose the travel technology partner who can develop following business model through which you can operate your business like any other OTA.

B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2B2B, Affiliate network / White label solution

Make sure that the system should be flexible, if you want to start with basic model of B2C travel portal and later add B2B or B2B2C, B2B2B then you can do that. Even with APIs also you do the same.

4. Payment Gateway: Integrating Single or Multiple Payment Gateways will allow your customer to book directly from your website.

To get a quote to build an OTA, contact us right now through

http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/get_quote.html

How to start an online travel agency, OTA

Things that need to take care for Flight Reservation System module:

GDS: Please note that for integrating any of the GDS systems, you need to have an IATA license plus you must have authority to sell the tickets. Otherwise you can use any other IATA agent’s IATA number to sell tickets.

Flight API: There is one more option, Flight APIs are also available with good inventory of global airlines. You can integrate LCCs (low-cost-carriers) also above the GDS system mentioned above.

PROVAB TECHNOSOFT is strategic partner to GDS systems and API providers / suppliers & consolidators. We work with all the major travel consolidators and integrate following –

GDS / Global Distribution Systems:

Amadeus GDS, Travelport / Galileo GDS, Sabre GDS

Hotel Aggregators:

GTA Travel, Hotelbeds, Tourico, Travco, Special Tours, HotelsPro, TransHotels, Miki Travels, Sun Hotels, Darina Holidays, DOTW, Asian trials, Versys, Expedia & many more

Transfers:

GTA & Hotelbeds

Car Aggregators:

Car Trawler, A2B

Bus Aggregators

TicketGoose and Redbus

Cruise Aggregators

MSC, Princess and Carnival

Travel Agent Software developed by PROVAB TECHNOSOFT will provide the following functionalities

• Design and Develop responsive web design for travel agency
• Design and Develop travel mobile apps based upon the business idea.
• CRS system development to enable search and bookings.
• GDS connectivity, API and XML integrations in the website to get large inventory.
• Differentiating and implementing different business models within the booking engine system like B2C, B2B, B2B2C, B2B2B
• Enabling ticketing system- especially for airlines, bus and events.
• Printing: invoices, confirmations, vouchers, room lists, passenger lists etc.
• Automatic forwarding to suppliers (email or fax) of reservations, requests, changes and cancellations
• Sending electronic invoices and electronic vouchers
• Reports: Sales report in various category and services to plan further marketing strategy.
• Control of purchase invoices, domiciliation of sales invoices
• Mobile version of the travel software as a travel app.
• CRM system to cater to all the customers seamlessly
• Accounting software to manage all the accountings to run the business smoothly
• Channel manager system development to automate the distribution process of your services.

We provide a complete office application and reservation system for the travel industry, where it is possible to use the system for both the Intranet and the Internet. This gives you the opportunity to show the actual availability and real-time price to your customers. Due to these factors, online booking solution for tour and activity companies built by PROVAB TECHNOSOFT are considered to be the best.

With our software for tour operators, an operator can take booking and accept card payments. With the integrated reader we provide, your employees can scan and validate tickets. Thus you can prevent fraudulent tickets.

Why Amadeus software is in great demand among agencies in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and other middle east countries?

Amadeus GDS is known as one of the best global distribution systems across the globe. Amadeus software uses the web services and using which online travel booking systems could be connected with amadeus travel inventory. So basically Amadeus GDS software is travel software connected with Amadeus GDS system.  

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Travel Industry has got a huge list of services when it comes to providing travel solutions to its customers. To retain the existing customer or bring a new customer has become an important agenda for every travel agents whether it is a flight ticket provider or hotel chain. Everybody wants to provide something extra to its customer. Partnering with other travel suppliers or travel consolidators will always help to avail the services which others have and at the same time share your own inventory with others to increase your business. This kind of partnership for mutual benefits will always be helpful to get maximum ROI and a global exposure through different channels. Dynamic Packaging is one such business idea or process where inventories of different services like flights, hotels and cars are combined together in a wholesale price in various permutation and combinations to design the best package for your customers and at the same time provide one stop solution for his needs.

To get a quote for travel software for dynamic package solution, contact us right now through http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/get_quote.html

Dynamic Packaging

About PROVAB TECHNOSOFT – Travel Portal Development Company

PROVAB TECHNOSOFT is a leading supplier of cutting-edge software for dynamic packaging to large number of OTAs across the globe. Many travel agents and tour operators around the world, especially in India, Dubai, Abudhabi, France, Germany, Malaysia etc. have been successfully operating with our customized software. As a hotel booking system development company we can design and develop an extremely fast and powerful travel portal with dynamic packaging and travel ecommerce. The backend will automate the entire system related to bookings, managing the operations, sub-agents, partners, suppliers, vendors, online and offline customers, customer experience, social media and many more.

Dynamic Packaging

Dynamic Packaging is the method to package holiday bookings to enable travelers to buld their own package with flights, cars, hotels, cruise, transfers, resorts, bus , vacations etc along with trip specific ad-ons and group tours.

The dynamic packaging like flight+hotel or flight+car or hotel+car leverages the OTA business to grow in terms of revenue and customer retention. OTAs connect with large number of wholesalers from different travel services to bring the best inventory at best cost. It is because of this feature that travelers still prefer to book their tour packages from online travel agency in comparison to any meta search engine or local agents. Customer know that they are getting best price and also at the same time hassle free journey something related to WYSIWYG.

How Dynamic Packages are sold?

Dynamic packaging is dynamic at several levels. Firstly, inventory is sourced dynamically, meaning the dynamic packaging solution will source flights, accommodation and car rental components for the package in real-time. Secondly, these components are dynamically combined into packages. Thirdly, the package is dynamically priced and is usually given an opaque total price.

In general wholesalers generally control the price of the inventory that is combined with the package. They take special discounted rates from the suppliers to make the best use of package.

Dynamic packaging can be integrated with any CRS system or GDS system to increase revenue sales and the packages can be sold through XML, travel sores, B2B and B2C websites.

The backend system can administer all the vendors, their markup management, control rates of various components of the package, control the inventory, control the contents and price through CMS system, commission management, user management, customer priviledges, voucher management and many more.

A professional travel technology company can develop a travel reservation system with the features like dynamic packaging, accounting, CMS, backend components (mentioned above), payment gateway, operations and many more.

How has facebook and twitter has helped travel reservation systems and web portals to grow?

In online travel booking domain or OTA web application portals, one of the eminent changes that we have seen is the impact of social media and the impact that they have on transforming the whole idea of sales of travel deals online. The present time advertisement provides more emphasis on customer engagement and building the very important element of “TRUST” among the customer. Building trust among the customer has been never being such an eminent part of advertisement as it is now. Success of online travel software totally depends on that.

Regarding Author:

Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several online reservation system development projects

The post Dynamic Packaging with flights, hotels and cars allows OTAs from germany, france, italy to upgrade their travel portal appeared first on Online Reservation System.

Online travel market is expected to have an 8% annual growth during 2015. Sales through online travel agency are predicted to reach $30.3 billion by 2015.The rising sales of mobile devices will hold more than 20% of online travel product bookings. OTAs’ distinguished advantage in leveraging the mobile channel will boost the OTA growth through 2015. Responsive web design and travel apps have also become important for travel business to represent their service online and either to make the website compatible for optimum viewing through various devices or through travel apps.

To get a quote for the right online travel agency software, contact us right now through http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/get_quote.html

Travel Agent Software for Online travel agency

About PROVAB TECHNOSOFT – Travel Software Development Company

PROVAB TECHNOSOFT is a leading supplier of cutting-edge travel agency software. Many travel agents and tour operators around the world, especially in India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, etc. have been successfully operating with our customized software. As a hotel reservation system development company we can design and develop an extremely fast and powerful travel software for travel agents and tour operators. Our travel software will automate the entire system of every travel agents related to bookings, managing the operations, sub-agents, partners, suppliers, vendors, online and offline customers, customer experience, social media and many more.

People are often subjected to intolerable travails by big travel booking players. The booking experience and the package offered will be excellent, but the actual travelling experience may not conform to the promises made. There may be unending delays at the airport and when you reach the hotel you booked two months ago has no information about your arrival. People now turn to their own travel agents.

The online travel agents offer you options that you would never find in single booking site. With his experience, he can make you reach your destination with less time and money.  Media now reveals, travel agents are coming back.

If you ponder over the reasons for this ‘return of the travel agent,’ you’ll find it in the leading travel booking sites which really confuses with a plethora of information. There are lots of restrictions and fees too, which the traveler will come to know only later, or sometimes never. Some popular airlines, in these big sites, are conspicuous by their absence. With their Big Data-generated assumptions, they often show the visitors the travel products which do not interest them. A real travel agent can give you better options. He certainly has a website of his own, equipped with an online booking engine. But he can give you personalized service and is easily reachable.

Many people nowadays contact a travel agent for booking flights because the decrease in flight capacity by the airlines has resulted in considerably more full flights on the routes. Giant booking sites are poor in offering seat choices and at seating co-travelers together. Family members or lovers cannot often sit together. Travel agent’s small travel website can arrange all this for you.

Since the travel agent wants to capture your loyalty and money, he will always try to provide a service that is better, faster and more affordable than a big travel site can offer you. You can also call him by phone if necessary, while you are traveling.

Small- and medium-sized online travel agencies are preferable when you plan to explore an unfamiliar place or have a complicated trip with many people involved.

People think it will be less costly to buy travel products from giant travel booking players, but often it is not so. Agents will be knowing promotional offers and often have access to exclusive deals. He can make your travel hassle-free and enjoyable.

Besides guidance on bookings, a travel agent can direct you on such issues as travel insurance, crowds, best time to visit, crime-prone areas, travel visas, vaccinations, and trip cancellation details and restrictions.

As online travel market is expected to have an 8% annual growth during 2015. The rising sales of mobile devices will hold more than 20% of online travel product bookings. This will also help to increase bookings online. OTAs’ distinguished advantage in leveraging the mobile channel will boost the  OTA growth through 2015. In 2015, online travel agencies will be more focusing on segments like hotels and holidays. OTAs have aggressively focused on hotels to provide a higher share of their revenues as the commission from selling flights has declined, and they have tried to attract consumers by reducing the cost of booking as much as possible. Hotel operators are worried about losing control over inventory and pricing to OTAs. Whereas Chain Hotels have a fair percentage of reservations made from OTAs and their website, the bookings for Independent Hotels through OTAs are higher than the ones made through their website. Online travel agencies will continue to make profits in hotel booking sector in 2015 too.

Global travel sales is expected to reach US$830 billion in 2017. Online travel agencies look forward to the emerging travel markets in China, India and Brazil. North America is still the leader in online travel market but growth is showing a downward trend. In all significant geographical areas, online travel reservations shift to mobile. Mobile travel purchases has already passed US$25 billion. Mobile devices are used for transactions such as one-night hotel reservation or emergency car rentals. Online  travel booking sector has become one of the most mature ecommerce markets.

Western Europe along with North America, Italy and Spain have online travel sales growing at an average rate of 15% per annum. In Britain, half of all traveleres have given up on traditional travel agents and  are booking their holidays entirely online. Travellers all over the world usually prefer travel agents for expensive travel arrangements whereas booking online for cheaper packages.

Asia-Pacific leads in growing online travel market in the world. It is predicted that Online travel sales in this region will reach $126.6 billion in 2015. In Asia-Pacific region,Japan is leading the online travel reservations. China is behind Japan but its growth is phenomenal. Fast-developing India shows a 24.8% of growth in online travel bookings. Due to the rise of the middle class, smartphones and tablets are being sold like hotcakes in Asia-Pacific. Internet connectivity is improving. Consequently, online travel bookings are expected to break records in 2015.

By 2015, 25% of all travel sales in the U.S. will be through mobile devices and it will fetch $US40 billion in revenue. In Europe mobile will capture 20% of bookings by 2015. The majority of consumers regard the Internet to be important for travel research and planning  and also inspiring for new travel.

Travel websites and portals use social media and content to drive more consumers to the platform. Most platforms are used to motivate and encourage consumers to book travel products. Blogs are used to guide the consumer, add value, and position the brand as an always reliable one. Other Contents include city guides, guided tours, promotional videos, 3-D images and so on. online travel agencies also ask the visitors to connect with Facebook and Twitter and this strategy is very effective in extending the customer base.

What we see at the beginning of 2015 is online travel agencies (OTAs) are becoming more popular, as travel “lookers” seek out one-stop shops to compare different brands, flights, hotels, packages and prices.

Which is the top GDS, travel APIs for airline reservation system?

Flight suppliers are the resources which can offer their customers wide range of flight inventories with both GDS and external connections as well as real-time availability on more than 500 + Airlines. Some of the flight suppliers which provides best in class solution for various flight based travel portal are: Amadeus, Travelport, Sabre, Abacus, Expedia, Travelocity, Mystifly, Travelfusion, TBO, Arzoo etc.

Regarding Author:

Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several online reservation system development projects.

The post 2015: Travelers still prefer booking with online travel agencies appeared first on Online Reservation System.

ATM Dubai 2015

Arabian Travel Market 2015 / ATM 2015 will open on May 4 2015 at 11AM at Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. ATM is one of the most popular annual travel and tourism events in the gulf and arab region. Online Travel Agents (OTA), hospitality companies, travel technology companies and mobility solution providers visit ATM every year to showcase their products and services. This event generates great business potential within the Middle East for inbound and outbound tourism professionals. With over 2,700 exhibitors, and 23,000 meetings set at the 2015 event, ATM is the region’s premier travel trade forum and exhibition.

To meet with our team at ATM Dubai 2015, please fill the form below.

http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/meetus-atm2015.html

Travel Technology Company – ATM Dubai 2015

About PROVAB TECHNOSOFT – Hotel Reservation System

PROVAB TECHNOSOFT is an award winning travel technology company, delivering hospitality solutions with B2B / B2C travel software, travel CRM, accounting software, car rental software and mobility solutions to global travel & hospitality companies.

We work with 40+ Hotel API providers, 9+GDS consolidators and Flight API providers, 3+ Car and Bus Consolidators, 10+ Transfers API provider, Multiple payment gateway solutions and Travel Insurance Providers. All these APIs and GDS systems when combined together in different combinations provide a robust online reservation system supporting all kind of business model in travel industry. Further to its extension it also incorporates various fancy bookings like spa deals, event tickets, tour operators, city trips.

To manage smooth operations the backend system of any travel portal or online booking system contains strong admin module, vendor management, API or GDS management, accounting software, CRM system, call-centre module, employee module, support ticket management, XML logs, language library, multiple currency control, email management, CMS management, mark-up management an many more.

Key Differentiators:

• Dedicated R&D team for Travel Technology Solutions
• Skilled and Certified Travel Portal Developers for Multiple API / GDS integration
• Structured Database with perfect data-modelling
• Experience in working with 40+ APIs along with GDS
• Customised Accounting and CRM module
• Complete source code and DB handover
• Fully Customised and Tailor-made solution
• Mobility Solutions

Some of the features that will form the highlight of Arabian travel market are as follows:

• Around 400 main strand holders
• Around 2,700 exhibiting companies expected to take part in the meet
• Around 86 countries representing in the exhibition
• Around 23,000 visitors expected to take part in the meet
• The number of pre-registered country at present is 152
• 113 new exhibitors
• Around 70 nationals and regional pavilions

Why hotel APIs are a key part of online hotel booking systems today?

To access wide array of online inventory, online hotel booking system is integrated with one or more Hotel APIs. An API is a set of functions, procedures or methods used by computer programs to request services from the OS, software libraries or any other service providers running on the system. Nowadays, there are various Hotel API providers available in the market like Expedia Hotel API, GTA API, Hotelbeds API, Hotelspro API, Travco API, and many more.

A team from PROVAB TECHNOSOFT will be there at ATM 2015 starting from 4^th May till 8^th May in Dubai, to meet the existing clients and to explore the opportunity to interact with new customers.

The post How OTAs can connect to travel technology companies in ATM Dubai– 2015. appeared first on Online Reservation System.

For- B2B Travel Portal Development- Get a Quote

http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/getaprojectquote.html

Travel Agency Software

Choosing the right travel blogger for your promotion, and in turn their brand. 

Your marketing campaign

1. Clear objectives: Have a clear understanding of your campaign and the objectives you want to achieve. This is crucial in order to provide a strong foundation when planning any blogger project. 

2. Structure: Is the blogger project part of a multi-channel campaign or is it a standalone activity in it’s own right? This could effect certain decision and choices surrounding social media amplification, engagement and promotion that you ask the bloggers to provide. For example, is there to be a standardised hashtag used? 

3. Establish your blogger goals: What do you want from the blogger/s? Should they focus on pre or post trip coverage? What about real time coverage during their trip? What content do they need to produce? Do they need to create photos or videos and if so, how are they to be used? Will they only be used on the bloggers site and their social media accounts? Or will your organisation need to use them too? If so, where? How many articles do they need to write? 

Where to find the bloggers

4. Social networking events: Travel bloggers can be found at free networking events like Travel Massive and TBU Socials. Those present are often from the travel trade and related digital/social media practitioners. Travel bloggers are also always there too.

5. Twitter: Use the search facility to find those using particular terms or hashtags that are important to you. eg Luxury Travel Blogger or #luxurytravel. If you use a dashboard like Hootsuite you can create streams that automatically track a search term or a list that you curate. You might like to create a list of luxury travel bloggers and just follow their activity online to see if any fit your brand?

6. Facebook: There are a multitude of groups on Facebook with travel bloggers, with some that are open but you may find that most are “closed” and who in turn require you to join before you can post or interact. It might be an idea to read the about page for any guidelines to being a member of that group. Some groups are more general in nature, whilst some focus on a particular niche or demographic.

7. Pinterest: A cursory search for the term “travel blogger” on Pinterest brings up a mass of results, with the option for you to filer results by individual “pins”, “boards” or “pinners”. It might be worth trying the boards option on Pinterest.

8. World Travel Market: The presence of travel bloggers at WTM is now well established, after what is now a four year collaboration with TBU. The are typically a variety of resources and opportunities to connect with travel bloggers, from 3 – 4 networking evening events to online opportunist to promote your stand or client as being “blogger friendly”.

9. Travel blogger conferences: Travel blogger conferences are an ideal opportunity for you to meet with multiple travel bloggers in a relaxed, professional environment that lends itself to collaboration. They provide you with the chance to sit down and meet with influential bloggers that can benefit your business and potentially work on your project. We do have our own conference taking place in Nantes at the end of August this year. You might also want to consider the Social Travel Summit and Traverse too.   Determining blogger credibility & suitability Having clear objectives, a coherent structure and blogger goals help you when determining a bloggers suitability for your project. You know your business better than anybody and you should trust your gut instincts when selecting bloggers to work with.

10. Dig deep: Once you have chosen a blogger you wish to consider, start out by just following them online.Try a quick google search to see if any complaints or negative connotations arise for that blogger.

11. Look at their blog: Do you like the look and feel of the blog? Your brand will primarily be represented on here, so does it fit your brand? Would your target audience also read the blog? Is the design of sufficient quality?

12. Check their writing style: In the same way as the look and feel of a blog, does the the writing style match your brand? Are there any curse words or phrases that would be a big NO NO for you? Is correct grammar employed and are there any spelling mistakes? Sometimes mistakes are not necessarily a problem. Readers appreciate the authenticity a blogger provides and a small number of mistakes can add to this.

13. Follow the blogger online: Pay attention to their Facebook page, does their appear to be a lot of engagement? Are many people liking, commenting and sharing their updates? This is important to check as this could be your brand that users are (or are not) engaging with. Similarly with Twitter, are you comfortable with how the blogger engages with their followers? Is there anything said that is contentious?

14. Media Kit: Does the blogger have an easily accessible media kit that can be download or at the very least requested by email? This is a resource that can save you a lot of time. It should tell you more about the blog by including:  – site stats – readership demographics – previous case studies .

How has facebook and twitter has helped travel reservation systems and web portals to grow?

In online travel booking domain or OTA web application portals, one of the eminent changes that we have seen is the impact of social media and the impact that they have on transforming the whole idea of sales of travel deals online. The present time advertisement provides more emphasis on customer engagement and building the very important element of “TRUST” among the customer. Building trust among the customer has been never being such an eminent part of advertisement as it is now. Success of online travel software totally depends on that.

Source:WTM

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