http://www.provab.com - Your travel business may be small or big, but it can’t survive in the present world without an Online Booking Software. You may have hosting a very good travel website design on your domain and it may also be attracting a-lot of visitors as well. But without travel software, you may not be able to realize its full potential. With online travel software in place, you can not only connect to potential clients but also achieve the sales online. Integrating a travel agency software will change your website to an online booking system platform.
But how to integrate, is an intriguing issue. There are three basic methods of integration to your existing website:
iFrame Integration
Top travel software provides the white label links, which can be connected in any travel website. Your web designer can simply import these links in iframe. Thus your website will host the search box and will enable the complete online booking software on your website.
Widget integration
You add the code snippet or a widget, from travel software provider, to your website code. Sections of on the online booking UI will be added to the desired places in your website (e.g., search box, hotel room or flights on special offer).
API integration
API integration is one of the most common methods used today. You need a professional travel software development company to achieve this. APIs provide the web services XML, which should be programmed to connect to third party server to bring the data. Its always advisable to hire an experienced travel portal developer to do this for you. Hotel APIs or Flight APIs integration will give you the complete control on look n feel of the system and customization.
With API integration, travel companies can -
•Have B2C, B2B, corporate and white-label modules
•Manage multiple suppliers including GDS & hotel consolidators
•Manage separate sub-domains / domains for end users and agents
•Update the markup from the backend
•Have IP based currency option
•Have comprehensive reporting system
Regarding Author:
Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several travel portal development projects.
If you are associated with the travel industry as a travel company, tourism development organization, resort, travel agency, consolidator or a travel adviser; you may be using travel technology solution that lends you the edge to attract/retain customers and beat competition. Travel portal software is ideally suited for those travel agencies who require flexible, easy-to-use solutions to automate and control their business online. Your experience in your industry, backed by this robust technology, will give you the necessary ammunition to skyrocket your business through the web.
So, how to enter the OTA market? How much it cost to build an online travel portal??
To set up OTA software, one needs to have a clear idea regarding the cost involved in developing a travel portal. After-all nothing comes without a cost. For every dollar that you spend in developing the travel software, you should get 10 fold back as the latest technology driven online travel booking software will drive more customers - means increase in sales & revenue.
The overall project cost depends on the complexity and depth of your requirement. If you know nothing about development and cost, here are some points to be considered:
1. Choice of t-commerce platform:
A comprehensive travel portal can be developed on various t-commerce platforms like flight booking engine, hotel booking engine, car rental software, cruise booking engine, bus reservation system, holiday and packages booking system etc. Depending upon one’s requirements and business vision, the specific platform can be chosen. While choosing the appropriate travel module, you need to know the cost associated with it.
Flight Booking Engine: It is one of the leading travel commerce platforms that provide distribution, technology for global tourism and travel industry. An airline reservation system comes with an XML integration, which is ideally provided by some API or GDS (Global Distribution System) consolidators. API/GDS is a network operated by a company that enables automated transactions between third parties and booking agents in order to provide travel-related services to the end consumers.
A basic flight reservation system with an API integration usually costs between 6K to 9K USD. For a booking engine with GDS integration, say Amadeus, you can add 25% to above cost.
Hotel Booking Engine: Online hotel reservations are a popular method for booking hotel rooms. It is a computerized system that stores and distributes information of a hotel, resort, or other lodging facilities. Large hotel chains typically have direct connections to the airline national distribution systems (GDS) (Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus, and Worldspan). These in turn provide hotel information directly to the hundreds of thousands of OTA through their XMLs, which are integrated in a travel booking software.
A hotel booking engine with a base level design can cost you between 5K to 7K USD. Any customization in terms of design, functionality, features etc., can cost you more.
Car Rental, Cruise and Bus Booking Systems: For a comprehensive travel booking engine, these all modules play a vital role in terms of business spread. According to a study report, the travel portal with these comprehensive services have more visitors compared with a single service provider booking engine.
Generally adding a car rental software or cruise / bus booking engines in a travel portal costs between 3K to 5K USD each. However the cost varies if you go with a single module system development.
2. Choice of business models:
There are basically two different types of business models - B2C, B2B. Based on the audience, one can select his appropriate business model.
B2C: Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Model refers to the tactics and best practices used by the companies that sell their product and services directly to the consumers. For a booking engine with B2C model, you can add 15% to above cost.
B2B: Business-to-Business (B2B) usually connects customers & partners to important company and product info. In simple words, it refers travel AGENT module. This model ensures your business growth as well as stability. For a booking engine with B2B model, you can add 30% to above cost.
Travel portal development cost varies a lot based on the features and platforms associated with the system. It can be commented after going through the detailed requirements. Professional travel portal development companies have ready framework for different type of travel models and thus using that, may reduce the time and development cost. Better to share your scope with a professional development company and get the absolute idea about pricing.
http://www.provab.com - The reliance on the GDS systems including Amadeus gds have increased significantly over the years. Travel agencies across the world, are more and more using global distribution systems (GDS). GDS systems are enabled to provide online travel deals and data through a single source. A more traditional way of calling the provider to confirm the booking, was used, which took considerable efforts and time per booking. Today, latest travel technologies from the leading consolidators (aggregators) including Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan have become popular among the travel agencies and services providers. Out of all, Amadeus GDS has emerged as the most preferred by travel agents around the world to make flights, hotels, car rentals, holiday packages, ferry, cruises or other travel services booking. The volume of the ticket bookings through Amadeus system such that all the leading airlines are actually connected with Amadeus GDS system. A growing travel agency must integrate Amadeus gds web services on travel website.
Apart from the generic travel contents, Amadeus GDS web services provides availability, pricing, details and online reservation module to travel agencies. Nowadays, travellers prefer a one-stop service, and request rich information to make a right decision. Information from the GDS system helps them to navigate, select and book, what they like. The travel agent has to provide detailed, real-time information to enable the consumer to choose an option that is suited to all his/her needs. Amadeus travel system just makes everything easy.
Amadeus had maintained its position as the global leader in travel technology and travel distribution solutions for tourism industry, by constantly introducing innovations. Set of solutions like e power suites, web services, APIs and other value added services, let client choose – what they like. Amadeus tools are built to deliver the professional travel booking solutions. It helps the agents to deliver comprehensive travel itineraries quickly and efficiently.
For travel technology companies also, Amadeus GDS is a top choice and companies can deliver the custom made solutions to travel agents. With great technical support, that it offers – things can be big for Amadeus. Integrating Amadeus gds web services will definitely take the travel agency to another level, as it can access the huge set of travel contents governed by Amadeus GDS.
Regarding Author:
Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several travel portal development projects.
http://www.provab.com - When you are searching for travel agency software, tour operator software or travel ecommerce solutions, one of the most important points to consider is the features associated with it. The level of customization capability that software possess also plays an important factor, while deciding on the software. One more major factor is the level of support that you would receive when you face technical difficulties, after the software has been launched.
Choosing a travel agency software or a travel portal software could be a challenging task, unless you concentrate on the below mentioned key points.
Make a note of the features that you want
The software should align with your business requirement
Have a look at the demo of the software that you are planning to purchase
Search for a software that could be customized
After development support is very essential
The software should be scalable
Price should fit your budget
1. Make a note of the features that you want in the software
Making a list of the features that you are looking for in the software would help you in knowing your needs. Make a note of the key features and the special requirement that you expect from the software. One of the most common examples that I can site for you is the involvement of advanced mark-up module or the log of the user behavior analysis or an open source technology for your system. Your requirement may include easy access like one click quotation, voucher access from any point, automatic cancellation of booking and raising a system alert automatically. You may wish to have customized features like multiple payment gateway, multi-language framework, pricing model that is flexible and a more controlled back office features.
2. The software should align with your business requirement
Travel ecommerce
The software that you purchase should have the capability of meeting your business requirement. This could be ascertained by conducting a market research and designing a business system that meets your requirements. The requirements vary as your business may be spread in one region or it may be spread across the world. The travel agency that you operate might be small with limited number of staffs or it may be a large organization with many employees. There may be a requirement to provide special access to certain employees and there may be requirement for different log ins. Your concept about your business operation should be very clear and accordingly the software should fit into your business requirement.
3. Have a look at the demo of the software that you are planning to purchase
An online presentation may showcase all the features, but it is advisable to ask for demo. Demo helps in understanding the system, along with handling it more efficiently. It is better not to have a system that you don't have knowledge about and are not able to use. It is essential to know about the system and how to effectively use it and getting a demo will provide you the opportunity of asking the question related to the operational features of the system.
4. Search for a software that could be customized
Customization is a feature that would allow you to add desired feature to the software when required. The travel software doesn't come with all the features. Customization would help you in adding and deleting the features at the required time.
5. After development support is very essential
The level of support that the software development company would offer is crucial to the smooth running of the system. When you are stuck, it is the support people who would help you to come out of the situation. You should opt for a software that has 24/7 support team, who would be at their tow to help with any kind of problem that arise with the software.
6. The software should be scalable
By being scalable the software would have enough room for expansion. When the software is scalable, it would have sufficient room for adjustment of your growing business and there would be no chance of the business getting halt due to the operation functions. This kind of software system would enable your business to grow without any kind of limitation associated with it. This is for your system facing less hassle during the course of expansion of your business and maintaining a steady growth.
7. Price should fit your budget
It is not essential that costly software would provide the best solution and it is also not essential that free software would save cost. Though your budget is limited, investing in better software is recommended. Getting software should be considered as a long term investment. There is always a comparison between features, functionality and piece of mind and price. If you invest in an effective software system, it would be capable of saving money in the future and also lot of frustration.
8. Mobile compatibility
A key feature knowing the fact that 30% of the travel booking is coming from mobile devices.
Regarding Author:
Author is a senior business analyst and an expert in travel software development and marketing strategy implementation.
http://www.provab.com - Being into the travel business, you might be thinking of innovative strategies to enhance your business growth and provide maximum exposure to your organization. As a tour operator and travel agency, a significant amount of your resource, which could be concluded in the form of time and money, is invested towards the sole purpose of advertising. This is a very well planned strategy as growing your business and bringing in enhancement in the revenue is not possible without a well-architect and well-implemented marketing strategy.
Advertising has always been given an eminent position, be it at present day business or the organizations that had conducted business in the past or the one who will be doing so in the future. It is the well planned advertisement of the products that has helped in their introduction to us and we in turn purchasing them as a consumer. Advertisement has acted as the backbone of every industry, be it the most famous brand of car BMW, be it the fashion brand Allen Solly or one of the famous brands in the hospitality industry “The Marriott group of hotels”.
One of the eminent changes that we have experienced to be a part of the advertisement industry is the impact of social media and the impact that they has on transforming the whole idea of advertising. 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.
There has been a sudden shift in what we call as focus of advertisement. At present the focus of every advertisement strategy that we formulate is based on building brand loyalty rather than building a brand image, which has been the sole focus of the process earlier. The task of building brand loyalty is much more challenging and failure to conduct a healthy dialogue with the customer may lead to loosing the business. This is the main reason behind majority of the companies at present outsourcing their advertisement segment to specialized social media marketing agencies.
Will it surprise you, if we say that there is a way to achieve the above mentioned goal of advertisement that is much easier, cheaper and at the same time consumes less time. This is a process that requires minimal effort on your part and if executed accurately has the capability of enhancing your online booking sale. PROVAB TECHNOSOFT has come up with a new idea called “Customer Review Module for Travel Software”. This is nothing but the travel product review, displayed on the travel portal or the travel agency web-page. By implementing this method of advertisement using the social media, we are not asking you to abandon the other strategies that you had been using for advertising your product. Customer review is a more conventional form of advertising, that has been often overlooked and under-rated when it comes to a way of generating social buzz for your travel business.
“What will happen if you allow your customers to post reviews about your travel business”? have this question ever invaded your mind. It is about letting your customer share their experience with your travel system and rate your service in an open manner. This is a way to let your customer know that their experience and satisfaction matters to you. It is about letting your customers and prospective customers know that you have architect your travel business to provide them with the best service and is in the process of constantly improving the service through customer feedback.
Benefits Associated with the Process
Increased Credibility
When customers get the opportunity to read the reviews about your service, it acts in a positive manner for your credibility. Your travel product takes the form of real people story from just being a collection of photographs, description and numbers. It is the real time experience that you customers have, described in their own words.
A Boost for your Online Booking Sale
As per the survey conducted on including Customer Review as a part of advertisement strategy, it has been revealed that there has been a dramatic increase in the online sales. One more aspect that was revealed is the implementation of this strategy by majority of the renowned online retailer. There is a science that could be related to the strategy and if you have not thought about it, then please think as this could be literally termed as free money.
Collateral Advertisement
Collateral advertisement is a real term that is present in the advertisement world. Here I am using the term with a little twist. The great part about customer review is generation of advertisement without focusing on your effort put forward towards the element of advertisement. This provides you with the opportunity to focus on the business aspect that is really required, which according to me is excellent service. Providing excellent service which in turn becomes the reason for generating positive customer review which is away to take your business towards the path of growth.
We would also like to mention that our travel technology product is not only about support our client's operational requirement, but in a way is the process for simplifying the customer engagement and feedback process. We are the provider of top-notch customer review service which provides you with the option of choosing between simple yet powerful and customized premade widgets to custom made solutions with the implementation of powerful APIs.
http://www.provab.com - Much has changed in travel technology over a decade. Traditional way of search and booking the travel deals are no more in fashion. Online booking systemhas become the keyword of travel domain across the globe. At present, online booking systems are most widely used for used for airline reservations, hotel & motel reservation, cab reservations and custom holiday packages. More and more booking systems are also connecting the event booking XMLs as well. In a nutshell, online booking system is internet based booking system software, which can be accessed by users through the unique URL, services can be searched and bookings could do done.
There are many web services / hotel APIs, which can be seamlessly integrated to bring the best inventory at best price.
Hotel APIs
GTA
Hotelbeds
Hotelspro
DOTW
Travco
Tourico
Restel
Miki
Jac Travel
Expedia
Priceline
Bonotel
GDS
Amadeus
Galileo
Sabre
A GDS system will also provide the data for hotels, cars and cruise apart from flights. It also provides the information to various distributors and travel agencies working simultaneously round the world.
Regarding Author:
Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several online booking systems.
