BLOG – DISCOVERY SERIES: TIME SAVING FUNCTIONALITY
It goes without saying that a fundamental necessity of technology is that it makes something better, makes something quicker or makes something possible that wasn’t before and sometimes it achieves all three. Although our travel technology products and services are built and provided with maximum customer efficiency in mind, there are several specific stand out functionalities from Open Destinations when it comes to saving you time.
CACHING MODULE
The Caching Module enables Travel Studio customers to pull in cached prices and availability for any part of a travel itinerary over a specific period. Flight prices, hotel availability and more can be saved offline enabling users to access price and availability data immediately rather than using time-consuming live requests that access APIs over the web for each individual query.
Travel Studio is capable of storing millions of prices and availabilities at once ensuring that users work more efficiently and can deliver accurate quotes, itineraries and packages to their end-users in far less time.
Travel Studio’s cached price and availability data can be pulled in from suppliers within Open Destinations’ extensive partner network. These include the likes of GTA, Hotelbeds, Expedia, JacTravel and Miki Travel as well as the major GDS systems Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport.
Quicker initial searches and increased conversion rates
Using the caching module, your customers will only access live prices and availability once they have shown intent to book a specific tour. Initial search queries showing prices and availability for a range of dates are done with extreme speed through accessing only cached data.
After a customer moves through the booking process by clicking on a specific departure, a live search is performed. This will be a slower search but there will be less live searches overall due to the bulk of searches accessing cached data only. The less live searches, the quicker they are and for some clients, cheaper too (due to search charges from GDSs).
There are also a number of additional measures in place to increase conversion rates. Amongst these are configurable alternatives to stay on sale. This enables you to set up comparable hotels to serve up to customers should their first-choice hotel be unavailable.
Commission rates and related tolerance rules are also fully configurable. For example, in order to keep live prices as close as possible to cached prices, commission can be automatically set to increase or decrease accordingly.
DRAG & DROP ITINERARY BUILDER
Our Drag & Drop technology enables Travel Studio users to build itineraries three to four times faster. This feature helps to demonstrate dedication to the end traveller’s requirements but also expertise and professionalism from an FIT tour operator or DMC.
Why Drag & Drop?
Customers booking FIT travel want to pick and choose to build their ultimate trip. This process can create a back and forth dialogue between the tour operator and traveller with pressure on the tour operator to deliver varied itineraries in rapid succession. Drag & Drop enables the tour operator to build the basic itinerary once and then make quick changes to certain items with ease. Previously created versions of the itinerary are stored in case the traveller wants decides they are happiest with something they’ve already seen.
How does it work?
After completing the Travel Studio set up process and assigning photos to various destinations, suppliers and services, you’re ready to build a Drag & Drop itinerary. Users simply set start and end dates either side of flights, transfers, accommodation, excursion and more. To add an item into the itinerary users just click the relevant photo and drag it into the itinerary template in the appropriate position.
Document Generator
Not only does this functionality make it easy to build itineraries but to send them out also. Travel Studio produces a highly formulated document, with your branding complete with itinerary and any other information e.g. Terms & Conditions. This document can be edited manually if needed and then converted into a PDF which is emailed to the traveller. If the traveller accepts the itinerary then the booking is made and the automated booking flow continues.
TRAVEL OUTSOURCING
Although not a technological functionality, our specialist Travel Outsourcing service saves customers a huge amount of time. This isn’t just because our experts back-office teams work quickly but because they work extremely accurately too! With mistakes being so rare it means our customers do not need to waste time going back and correcting them.
Finding the internal resources to handle back-office processes is a real challenge for businesses in the travel industry.
Open Destinations have dedicated teams on hand to take care of your company’s back-office operations from hotel contracting to PNR checking, complex finance processes and more.
We tailor our support programs to your business ensuring that you maintain control, reduce costs and increase efficiency.
You can find out more about the benefits of Travel Outsourcing here.
