“SeaWorld Orlando’s newest attraction combines turtle
encounters with a 3D movie of a turtle’s epic journey” TURTLETREK OPENS THIS SPRING, P46
Chief commercial officer Kurt Ekert
explains that the system, which has been in development for years, has been developed with ease-of-use for the travel agent as its first priority. “There are a range of products and the agent can choose which ones he puts on the desktop,” he explains. “We want to help agents sell more – and if we achieve what we want to achieve we will blow away the marketplace.” The intuitive system is being rolled out this year, following successful trials with Flight Centre in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. With a slight dig at American Airlines and its Direct Connect sales scheme – and with Travelport still going through the US courts against them – Ekert adds: “What suppliers do directly, we want to enable them to do through third party sales; we are a big supporter of third-party sales.” Another way in which Travelport facilitates those third-party sales is through its Smartpoint app, which offers a mix of more cryptic commands – from any GDS – point- and-click and graphical pop-ups to make agents lives easier. The company claims it reduces keystrokes for an
TechTalk
Gravytrain chief executive Kevin Taylor on the risks of taking on do-it-yourself SEO
Universal Desktop: combines air, rail, car hire and hotels into one search
overall booking process by 15%, and by up to 72% when searching for the best fare, freeing up a significant amount of a travel agents’ time, while retaining some elements of the GDS that are familiar to long-standing agents. After extensive global trials Smartpoint is now being marketed to travel agents.
Saving agents time Rooms and More, meanwhile, is a third development from Travelport this year – a hotel comparison site that enables agents to compare hotels via a range of criteria including commission, and then receive that commission direct from Travelport. Niklas Andreen, Travelport’s group
Rooms and More: based on agent feedback
vice-president, hospitality, says of the product, which is to be fully marketed to the trade from later this year: “GDSs have historically failed with
The Desktop beta-tester
Scott Pawley, managing director of Woking-based business travel specialists Global Travel Management, has already been running a beta version of Travelport’s Universal Desktop for a year. “It’s certainly showing results.
It really is easy to use, although you do need a bit of travel knowledge to understand what to do with the
smaller agencies and hotels – so they often put people on hold to call the hotel. We asked agencies what they needed and they told us they wanted a system which was quick, easy to learn and prompted them to sell a hotel. We think we’ve delivered that.” For a steadfastly business-to- business brand, it’s interesting that a key part of Travelport’s philosophy is to give its technology a consumer feel – thus bringing the trade experience as close to the customer experience as possible, so that the agents’ time will be freed up to sell more travel. As Travelport’s chief executive Gordon Wilson explains: “The key to each of the Travelport products is simplicity. We’re getting some fantastic traction on that. Travelport has to become the GDS of informed choice.” In 2012, the brand is evidently working very hard to achieve that.
fare; you do need to know what you are doing,” he says. “But it can pull in information from any global distribution system. “Where it makes a real difference is that it so much easier to order a car or hotel, as it already has the location and date in the system. We can instantly ask them if they are interested and give them a price, and we have seen a real increase as a result.”
There are many articles in travel magazines giving practical tips on DIY search engine optimisation – but is DIY really the best route? I can understand smaller firms cannot afford an agency on a retainer, but they will rarely grasp the complexity that needs to be appreciated in competitive SEO. For instance, it’s a great tip to set up an XML sitemap, but which pages should be included? What priority should be set? Is a multi- tiered sitemap approach needed? Therefore, agents must ask themselves these questions to help them decide if the DIY is possible: ■ Is it important to my business that I rank well in search engines? ■ Do I have the time to learn SEO, and am I willing to wait until I’m ready? ■ Can I afford to hire somebody with more experience and knowledge to do a better job? ■ Can I make a long-term commitment to continue the activity? ■ Can I adjust some of the things I’m already doing, or is it all going to be new to me? Despite my obvious bias (I work for a digital agency), DIY often does more harm than good. Just as a great chef will tell
you, cooking great cuisine is a lot more than just buying a good recipe book.
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