EyeforTravel News: Travel Agents Feed

Pegasus signs deal with Travelport to boost agencies' hotel commissions

Lindi — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:47:23 +0100

Initially planned for the EMEA and APAC regions, the agreement will enable Galileo agents to more easily reconcile hotel bookings and significantly improve tracking and collection of hotel commissions.

The agreement was reached to help agents boost earnings from hotel commissions at a time of reduced commissions in other travel segments.

Empowering travel agents with tailor-made technology

Lindi — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:13:33 +0100

In a market like India, where travel agents are witnessing a slew of changes due to online travel distribution, companies like Wizie are offering booking engines, which bring only available discounted and published fares from the GDS. The booking engine can connect multiple consolidators as well. This way, the agents' customers would get the best fares and also when a booking is made the PNR automatically falls into the respective consolidators "Q" for the issuing/fulfillment.

Agents waking up to earning "good commissions" from budget accommodation

Lindi — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:58:59 +0100

The company shared that post the introduction of dedicated trade link in April www.hostelbookers.com/content/workwithus/, more agents and operators than ever before are using HostelBookers to book client accommodation including top groups specialist Top Deck Travel. It added that apart from general trade growth, "the ability of HostelBookers to find the right property, at the right price, within 24 hours of receiving a group booking request has fuelled the phenomenal growth."

Agents have dedicated access to HostelBookers' 10,000 worldwide hostels and budget accommodation.

Abacus promises agents fingertip control of their businesses

Lindi — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:57:19 +0100

Abacus PowerSuite, a mid-back office solution, helps travel agencies automate the entire range of travel agency operations from sales and invoicing to accounts reconciliation. According to the company, much of the costly manual processing which used to be part and parcel of the business of running an agency has now been reduced to a few simple clicks through the solution.

The new solution will be released in Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, and made available to other markets served by Abacus throughout 2008.

Helping agents to book flights that are not yet e-ticketable

Lindi — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:15:49 +0100

Available June 1, Sabre vMCO addresses concerns voiced recently by UK and Canadian agency organisations that some transactions would not be e-ticketable in time for IATA's May 31, 2008, 100% e-ticketing mandate.

British Airways is one of the first airlines to endorse the use of Sabre's vMCO solution.

Only 21% of Britons book their breaks using a travel agent: survey

Lindi — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:42:40 +0100

The remainder use the telephone to book direct.

The findings were part of a survey of 1,000 adults by Internet research company Ciao Surveys.

The poll indicated that over half of UK citizens (58.5%) take one to two holidays abroad per year. Almost a quarter of respondents (24.8%) stating that they had their eyes set on Australia and just under 20% hoping to make it to North America. Yet others are content to explore closer to home, as 18.3% said they would most like to visit Europe.

Teleticket launches new email facility for agents

Lindi — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:57:46 +0100

Neil Chapman, managing director, Teleticket, said the new feature makes travel more passenger-friendly, with a reduction in unnecessary paperwork and waiting times/costs for post, increasing overall efficiencies at lower operational costs.

"This new ticketing system will also allow Teleticket to sell and ticket on a mixture of low cost and charter flights on one booking. For example an agent can offer travel with Jet2.com from Manchester to Tenerife with a return on Futura and this would be issued on one contract and ticket," he said.

CarTrawler expands its reach in North America

Lindi — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:14:42 +0000

CarTrawler stated that with this move, it is opening up a major low cost distribution channel for all North American car rental suppliers.

Travelport GDS opens new revenue streams for agents in Asia Pacific

Lindi — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:00:03 +0000

The enhanced, generic version of Travelport ViewTrip replaces the former Galileo ViewTrip and Worldspan My Trip and More products, combining the best of both solutions. It allows travellers to view, print and email itineraries, expense receipts and electronic receipts via a website in 23 languages, including Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Thai, Bahasa Malay and Japanese. Users of the former Galileo ViewTrip product will now have access to rich new content such as driving directions, comprehensive maps, flight status and hotel property images.

Traditional high street travel agents still popular in the UK

Lindi — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:35:36 +0000

According to Holiday Which?, 44% of people surveyed who had booked a holiday abroad in the last year used a travel agent to book all or part of the holiday, and almost a third (29%) more phoned or visited an agent to gather information before buying. The publication interviewed 2,923 adults by telephone in September / October 2007 to ask whether they used travel agents, and what they thought of them.