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Abacus first to put the power of mobile into travel agents’ hands

24-11-10

 
Abacus first to put the power of mobile into travel agents’ hands image
 

MTT implements professional travel agency GDS services on mobile

Travel agencies have been slow to adopt the mobile web, but Abacus International has put the power of mobile directly into travel agents’ hands. The Asia-Pacific GDS partnered with Dublin-based Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd. (MTT) to develop new solution Abacus Mobile to allow travel agents to provide professional service to their customers even when they are out of the agency office.

Travel agencies compete on service and while some of the largest agencies have 24 hour call centres, most do not. An agent who is out of the office and out of touch can’t compete. With Abacus Mobile, travel agents can make and modify bookings and clear waitlists anytime, anywhere.

“There’s an increasing demand for mobile services from travellers, but there’s no reason for mobile travel services to be limited to the B2C market. Abacus Mobile was designed to give agents access to professional travel agency GDS services via mobile. It’s like having an agency call centre in your pocket,” said Gerry Samuels, Founder and Executive Director, MTT.

The Abacus Mobile solution, available to travel agents on virtually all smartphones running operating systems such as iPhone, RIM, Android and Symbian, has been designed to emulate the familiar “green screen” style of the Abacus Point of Sale system. Agents can enter standard text string commands and can insert system specific symbols like Cross of Lorraine, ChangeKey and EndItem from a dropdown menu. Agents with touch screen mobiles can also operate the system via point and click.

“We wanted to enable our travel partners to maximise the potential of the mobile platform,” said Vice President of Marketing, Abacus International, Brett Henry. “MTT delivered a creative solution. Our agents love it – now they can serve customers quickly and easily no matter where they are and without investing a lot of time learning a new interface.”

Abacus Mobile is powered by MTT’s comprehensive mobile travel platform, M2B. This powers downloadable mobile apps and mobile web optimized for virtually all devices from a single platform. M2B connects to virtually all of the key GDS, airline and hotel systems in the world and can also intelligently re-purpose content from regular PC web sites.

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easyJet and MTT - The number one travel iPhone app in the UK

12-Dec-11 11:50

 

On Thursday December 8th, easyJet, the UK’s largest airline released iPhone and Android apps, developed by Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd., using our M2B Next Gen mobile travel platform.

The app is the fastest airline booking app available, enabling passengers to book a flight on more than 580 routes in less than 30 seconds! (easyJet Press Release)

Within 24 hours the easyJet iPhone app was the number 1 travel app in the UK!<

Read more...

Can mobile change the way travellers feel about ancillary products?

15-Jun-11 17:39

 
Can mobile change the way travellers feel about ancillary products? image
 

by Gerry Samuels,  Founder and Executive Director

Ancillary sales are one of the most debated issues in the travel industry today. Forrester (with Amadeus) project that by 2015 ancillaries will account for up to 18% of travel suppliers’ revenue.

In their January 2011 study, Cross-Sell Your Way to Profit, they reveal that while traditional third-party services such as insurance, car rental and hotel room sales are expected to remain popular, travel providers see great potential in a range of ‘extreme’, as yet unexploited, products and services.

By 2020, more than half of travel providers expect to offer virtual reality services that can help passengers experience airports, hotels and cruise ships before arrival, digital concierges to improve the in-hotel or airport experience and in-journey spa treatments.

It’s clear that travel suppliers need and want to grow and diversify ancillary revenue. What consumers want is not so clear, and opinions are divided.

Depending on who you ask, consumers want the lowest possible fare with everything unbundled, or they want simple logical bundles and reasonable fares, or they want more value-added options and third party services or they are sick to death of being nickel and dimed to death, and want the whole mess to just go away.

While travel suppliers work to find the right balance for their brand and their customers long term, mobile offers an immediate opportunity to turn the problem on its head.

Front-loading optional ancillary services in your booking process can be effective for some services, but the mobile phone in every travellers pocket means that suppliers can interact with customers at every step of the journey (including planning and pre-trip preparation), and can choose to offer the right ancillary services at the time when the customer is most likely to need or want to buy.

Done well, ancillary sales via mobile will be seen by customers as valuable service, not sales.

Let’s look at some examples:

  • At time of booking offers on ground transportation and airport parking are logical options.
  • At mobile check-in, especially on the return leg of a trip, an offer to skip the queue at security and use the VIP lane could be well received. I know exactly what to expect from the security queue at my home airport, but I might well pay to sail to the front of the queue at O’Hare. This might also be a good time to remind me that I didn’t opt for an in-flight meal.
  • Your flight is delayed for three hours – how about a day-pass to the lounge for a glass of wine with free wi-fi?
  • Just before boarding an airline could push a mobile only offer for extra leg-room or seat upgrade. The extra fee may not have seemed attractive at time of booking, but after an hour in the airport a little extra space seems like a dream come true.
  • A guest booked an executive room and checked-in after midnight; a quick tap on their mobile could order room service coffee for the morning.
  • Guests who book family rooms may appreciate direct mobile booking for local amusement parks or family activities.  Maybe even a reminder about the in-resort babysitting service and available (grown-up) dinner reservations.
  • It’s the night before check-out. The kids are hyped up on sugar and you can’t find little Sally’s left shoe. Would express mobile check-out and a car to the airport tomorrow morning help?

There are a thousand possibilities.

A well developed mobile channel, integrated with your business systems, allows you to offer your customer what they want, when they want it and when they are willing to pay for it.

And that’s something that both travel suppliers and consumers want

(originally published at Tnooz.com)

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