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 the 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. For Travel Agency Software – Get a Project Quote - http://www.provab.com/get_quote.html 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 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.
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Booking your hotel through online hotel reservation software is easy. The availability of multiple accommodations for each destination, gives end users enough flexibility to choose a right hotel at right cost. Each accommodation option provides a varied range of pricing, facility, quality and availability, using which end users can select and pick a desired option. For B2B Travel Portal & OTA Setup – Get a Project Quote – http://www.provab.com/get_quote.html Top hotel consolidators Expedia, GTA Travel, Hotelbeds, DOTW, Agoda, Hotelspro, WCT, Travco, Tourico, Bonotel, Travelocity, Jac Travels, Miki and others have designed and developed APIs for hotel inventory to share the hotel inventory to global travel agent. The web services of hotel APIs not only sharing the availability but also the room types, pricing as well. The main aim associated with the hotel APIs is travel agents, both small and medium-sized travel agents offer their clients the best of the deals at any corner of the globe. Hotel booking systems equipped with Hotel APIs, makes all the information regarding hotel selection available at the finger tip of the customers, and it is also real time information. API stands for application programming interface. In simple terms hotel API integration provides a legitimate access for one company to get access to the product of the other companies. A travel management company or a travel portal can get access to a huge variety of hotel inventory through hotel APIs integration. Hotel APIs acts as web service with the option of online functionality for searching and booking of the hotels across the world. Hotel API web service provides a broader spectrum to the online hotel booking services. The travel management companies or the travel agencies get the privilege of providing its users with the option of choosing their accommodation as per their need at a particular destination, thus giving a wider enhancement to the business of the travel agencies. The benefits of the top hotel APIs for the travel agencies are as follows:
Features associated with the top hotel APIs are:
The leading hotel APIs include Expedia, GTA API, Hotelbed XML, Hotelspro XML, Tourico API, DOTW API, Travco API, Tourico XML, Expedia API, WCT API, Bonotel XML and booking.com. API based hotel reservation system is a hit at the present as it is accompanied with benefits like 24/7 availability, enhanced client satisfaction, automated system, immediate confirmation, time saving and brings improvement in sales. In the present date of online sales, where physically existing travel agent shops / kiosks are losing importance and a new trend of bookings through online travel portals & airline reservation systems, is developing very fast. This has created huge opportunity for travel technology companies to build great online reservation systems (airline reservation system, hotel reservation system, & holiday packages reservation system) with top GDS systems / Global Distribution Systems. Apart from cutting edge technology, the user engagement model, displaying the vest pricing and offers are key points for any reservation system to succeed. Airline reservation system, commonly known as ARS, is generally considered to be the user side system for any airline or GDS. It consists of the exchange of data through the GDS system, which consolidates the worldwide airline data and share through unique web services API. This is an effective and efficient way of consolidating the global airlines availability and pricing, which is combined together with best GUI interface and published for end users on any airline reservation system (GDS based).
In online travel services marketing & sales, airline reservation system is a part of comprehensive travel reservation system, which consist-off hotel reservation system, transfer system and sightseeing module. GDS system, which is known as global distribution system is the interface between a travel reservation system and the end airlines, because it consolidates the data including the availability and pricing. The end buyers can check the availability and do the booking, which in turn is forwarded to airlines console through GDS. Advanced airline reservation systems offer the features like oneway, roundtrip, multi-destinations all together. Thus also providing the end users the better deals / offers on every booking, they do. Most of the reservation systems are also offering the dynamic packages like airline + hotel, hotel + cars, hotels + holidays packages, clubbing the packages together. This helps the buyers to plan the travel in a better way. Amadeus, Galileo / Travelport, Sabre and Abacus are among the top GDS systems available today. GDS consolidates the data for airlines, hotels, cars, packages and cruises. This consolidated data, is then shared to end travel reservation software / travel portals through their proprietary web services APIs. Author: Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several travel portal development projects. How we can improve customer engagement through the latest travel technological advancements?27/9/2016 The internet and the proliferation of smart-phones have transformed the way consumers reserve hotels and accommodation. This drastic change in consumer behavior has led to an up-rise in online bookings around the world and inherently meant a transformation in how travel agencies help their customers book hotel rooms. Travel agencies with hotel booking systems are getting more business. Hotels also benefit from hotel booking systems as they get more rooms booked, thus avoiding the prospect of rooms remain vacant. For the B2C user perspective, below is work flow, which they see during the booking process-
The whole online hotel booking system being 100% web based model, it was profitable rather than conservative method. Major business models, B2C, B2B, B2B2B and B2B2C are used widely across the globe. There have been a consistent debate about, which one is better but most of the leading travel agencies are actually using both. Professional travel portal development companies, which are offering online hotel booking system are now clubbing the system with mobile apps based on android and iOS operating systems. Most of the working and corporate professionals prefer to get the booking done on the go and thus mobile apps are far more helpful rather than web version. Online hotel booking systems which are openly definable and customizable to cater to their specific business needs. Multilingual hotel booking systems are widely used in USA, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Dubai UAE, India and Singapore. A combo of robust hotel booking system and mobile app can certainly keep you ahead of competitors. Regarding Author: Author is a senior business analyst and an expert in travel portal development and marketing strategy implementation. Over the last decade, we saw the growing rates of hotel booking systems across the globe, GDS and Non GDS – in both the categories. We also simultaneously saw growing travel technology companies, which are competing in developing and delivering the best in class hotel booking systems, hotel CRS systems, hotel reservation systems and hotel extranet. Travel technology companies have come up with certain very innovative ideas about the search and sort algorithm to integrate several GDS and hotel API providers. With such a momentum, it is very much required for any travel management company to partner with leading travel technology company with in-depth experience in dealing with GDS and API Integration. Robust hotel booking systems don’t only showcase the great inventory and offerings effectively, but also provide a quick and easy add to cart option to ensure the user experience is as enjoyable as possible and attract more and more buyers towards the online booking system. With so many hotel booking systems available, it is mandatory to build the custom features to create a niche for your business. One must choose a solution that integrates easily with the existing travel website and provides a great solution to the end clients. To choose the best travel technology company after short listing it according to your travel portal attribute list, the know-hows of the company and details are inevitable. This is because a company with enough experience API integration and GDS Integration can provide you with a better service and will be able to bring the live certification process quickly. You should make sure the experience of that travel technology company in successful travel reservation system deployment and specially matching something like yours and then go through the product demo. Hotel booking system demo is important, as one must see in detail as to what’s ready to offer and what can be customised. API integration, being a complex process, its always advisable to go for a travel technology company, which has experience in integrating several hotel APIs and GDS web services. If everything comes positive then great or else the search is on. To decide upon this should be given ample amount of time as this can prove to be the most important decision for your business. To know how to choose best travel technology company for your travel reservation system, one should look for these features in the features list of that company:
Author: Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several travel portal development projects. For handling the ever growing network of various online reservation systems, there are the global consolidators, which consolidate the global travel data from various airlines, hotel providers and car providers. Such a system that aggregates and distributes travel related information to end travel management companies, is called GDS System / Global Distribution System. GDS System is a centralized reservation system used as an ultimate access point by different travel agents for reservations on different reservation systems. It is a computerized travel reservation system that provides automated transactions between Vendors and travel agents who in turn provide booking services to the travellers. GDS works in 3 sectors namely, airline reservations, hotel reservations and car rentals. A GDS system connects all of these three sectors and a huge share of worldwide travel bookings goes through GDS and other consolidators. The major GDS systems are Amadeus, Sabre, Apollo, Galileo, Worldspan, Abacus and Infini. These have links to the airline's database and provide all links to the travel agents who are the primary customers. Basically it is a medium used by various travel agents to access the seats, rates and booking information related to different airlines. It connects various such reservation systems all together within a single entity and also connects them to various other GDS present so as to provide combinational services like flights plus hotels or hotels plus rental cars etc. The association between single ARS – Airline Reservation System and the GDS is so advanced that the booking systems and the travel agents access availability and pricing information in real time. Whole process of searching and booking and generating the PNR, can be finished in in no time. In case of ARS, whenever a booking is made, a PNR is generated that contains all the journey details for that passenger. GDS also holds the entire data in that PNR, called user profiling whereas ARS contains PNR details for that passenger only related to that particular airline. Author: Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several travel portal development projects. |
AuthorPROVAB TECHNOSOFT is an award winning travel technology company , delivering B2B / B2C travel software, travel CRM, accounting software, car rental software and mobility solutions to global travel & hospitality companies. ArchivesCategories
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