To increase the opportunities to sell hotel rooms and derive incremental revenue, agents can now search for hotels by vicinity using a full or partial address.
LANGLEY, UK – Travelport, a leading Travel Commerce Platform, has released an enhanced version of its award-winning travel agency point-of-sale solution, Travelport Smartpoint. Available now, it features performance enhancements, improved usability and new functionality that significantly improves the selling experience for travel agents.
To increase the opportunities to sell hotel rooms and derive incremental revenue, agents can now search for hotels by vicinity using a full or partial address. This is something that can’t be achieved by travel agents working with traditional, ‘cryptic’ point-of-sale products, unless they leave their system to search elsewhere for key information. Also, recognising the need to deliver efficiencies, a hotel billback solution has been integrated into Travelport Smartpoint. It increases security and saves agents time by automating the manual reconciliation process, utilising Virtual Account Numbers, or ‘VANs’ as provided by eNett International. This also allows a business traveller to stay at a hotel without having to pay their hotel bill on departure, as the payment is arranged between the traveller’s Travel Management Company and the hotel.
With Travelport Smartpoint, agents can see images, comparisons, maps and reviews of hotel properties as well as specific offers based on traveller’s loyalty memberships. Together with the enhancements announced today it is helping agents to work smarter, increase sales and revenues.
As well as improvements to the hotel booking process, we have also now integrated SeatGuru, the website which allows travelers to choose the best airline seats and in-flight amenities. This means that travel agents can quickly and easily access seat reviews, without having to leave their booking flow, providing further opportunities for upselling and improved customer service. Through our industry leading capabilities, travel agents booking air tickets can also advise their customers about the entire range of products, including branded fares and ancillaries available from airlines, with fully interactive, graphical screen displays and real time booking. In total, over 120 airlines are signed up for this high value-adding distribution capability.
Jason Clarke, Travelport’s Managing Director for Agency Commerce commented: “Travelport Smartpoint is designed to give our travel agents the most effective selling experience possible, allowing them to deliver value to their customers and sell smarter. We are constantly talking with and listening to our travel agency customers to find out exactly what their requirements are and these new enhancements come as a direct response to those conversations. As the needs of the traveller evolve, so must those serving them and at Travelport we continually strive to improve our offering. Travelport Smartpoint is the next step in this evolution.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
