The travel industry is an industry that is only going to continue to grow across the globe.
This is good news for entrepreneurs who want to start a travel agency or any other sort of travel-related business. Regardless of whether you want to be an independent travel consultant or start your own big travel agency, it’s simply easier than ever to sell your products and services worldwide.
We live in an era where technology is advancing at a more rapid pace than at any time in history. Things that people used to need to do themselves can now be done by software and computer systems, and this certainly holds true for the travel industry too.
Looking for Travel Agency Software? Check out SoftwareSuggest’s list of the best travel agency software solutions.
To put this into perspective, if you are going to run your own travel agency or travel-related business, you need to have good travel agency software.
Customers are going to seek out the travel agency that can serve them best. They’re going to want to find the best overall travel packages, the most compelling photos of different travel destinations, the cheapest remittance services rates from services such as Remitly, and the overall most inexpensive flights and hotel rooms.
Therefore, what you need to do is select software that can best help you meet the needs and wants of your customers.
In other words, reliable, quality travel agency software is something that is fully necessary for running your travel agency business. To find the best software for the travel agency business, you need to know exactly what to look for, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Top 7 Features of Travel Agency Software
1. Flexibility and Scalability
Every travel agency and every other kind of business for that matter is individually unique in terms of its size, demands, and business operations.
Your software needs to help you meet those operations and demands and to do this, it needs to be flexible and scalable software.
Here’s some truth: travel customers crave flexibility. What if they like the products that you are offering but they want to see another variation of that product that they can’t find on your website, for example? If you are unable to run that through your system, that’s a problem. In other words, your software system needs to be flexible enough to handle unexpected situations.
Besides flexibility, your software also needs to be scalable. If your business is going to grow and expand, your software needs to keep up with your business growth.
For example, let’s say your software is currently handling the number of bookings your receiving. But then let’s say your business grows, and you begin booking flights and hotel rooms for even more customers. Is your software able to handle those extra bookings? If not, that’s a problem.
2. Customized Tour Packaging
The next thing your software needs to include is tour packaging.
Today, travel customers choose their accommodations, their activities, their destinations, and so on.
What your software needs to do is customize tour packages to meet the requirements and demands of your customers, by enabling the customer to create a truly customized tour package.
Otherwise, your customer(s) may not be satisfied that they can’t make their own travel packages for the vacation of their dreams, and they are going to move on.
3. Reservation Management
One of the most important features that your travel agency software will need to have is reservation management.
You can probably relate to this, knowing how hard it can sometimes be to make a reservation.
What your software needs to be able to do is to track reservations from beginning to end, along with payment, itineraries, vouchers, invoices, and quotations that are associated with those reservations.
Basically, you want your software to be fully automated so that you can provide your customers with all of the services that they are looking for as they go about booking reservations.
4. Quotation Management System
A good online quotation management system is another critical element to have in your software.
Generally speaking, a travel agent will need around one day to create a quote for a destination package. But if there are multiple destinations and different factors associated with those destinations, then the process can take much longer than that.
To better engage your customers and lower your working time, you need an online quotation management system that would allow you to create a quote within a reduced amount of time (ideally one hour or less than that even).
This will allow you to create far more quotes in a day, which obviously improves your agency’s efficiency and productivity.
5. Payment Flexibility
Last but not least, it will be of great benefit and convenience to your customers if your travel agency can offer them payment flexibility.
What this means is that you need to offer a number of different payment options and your software needs to be able to accommodate those options, whether it be by card, net banking, cheque, or cash.
Traditionally, travel agencies would book the flights and hotel rooms for their customers, and collect information later after making their customers confirm the booking. But if you can offer your customers’ more convenient payment options, they will greatly appreciate it.
6. Multiple Sales Channel
Multiple sales channel is one of the crucial features of a travel agency software. Apart from travel agents, it empowers consumers to make their own travel reservations.
Using this feature, you can build a B2C web portal and mobile apps that allow customers or travelers to book their travel plans. And it also seamlessly integrates with different payment gateways so that clients can directly make the payment using the portal.
That way, customers who don’t like to talk to a travel agent and book their own plans can make good use of your B2C portal.
7. Multi-Currency and Multilingual
Having a system that supports multiple languages and currencies can help target your audience internationally. You will be able to serve clients from different countries, which will ultimately result in increased revenue.
The system that supports this feature has the capability to change it to the local currency and language of your visitors. For instance, if a customer is from the UK, the software will display prices in GBP. Similarly, if a customer is from India, the site can offer to view the site using local or official languages as per their choice.
Bottom Line
In essence, the travel agency software you choose should help make your travel agency far more efficient and productive while simultaneously serving your customers well and hopefully keeping your overall cost of business operations down.
You won’t have to change your business model just because you’re using the software. If anything, the best software will enhance your travel agency and make things a better experience for your customers.
A Backpacker with keen interest in Digital marketing. Responsible and passionate for building a digital culture at SoftwareSuggest. Grabber to implement new competitive ideas to analyze and boost online presence. Could be found in mountains and solo traveler by birth.
