TravTalk India Online Magazine
Travelport has launched a new Trip Manager portal on Travelport+, offering travellers to service their trip and carry out fast and easy transactions on the go. With Smartpoint tool, now visitors can access new itinerary enhancements, including Trip Quote, to customise quotes, and Assisted Ticketing capabilities.
Nisha Verma
Travelport has introduced a latest update to its next-generation platform, Travelport+, by which customers using the latest version of Travelport’s desktop tool, Smartpoint, can now access new itinerary enhancements, including Trip Quote, to customise itinerary quotes, and Assisted Ticketing capabilities.
Additionally, Travelport has launched a new Trip Manager portal on Travelport+, offering self-service for travellers to carry out fast and easy transactions for their trip on the go and continues with its Intelligent Storefront mission by making it easier for agents to understand offers and compare brands with similar attributes on a like-for-like basis.
Agencies using Travelport can also better manage the hotel bookings they sell with a simple self-service rules engine, the Content Optimizer.
These enhanced and modern retailing tools are paving the way to revolutionise travel retail, modernise the booking experience, and make it easier for agents to offer more choice and deliver better service to their travellers, said Kyle Moore, Global Head, Customer Strategy & Marketing for Travelport.
Self-service
Speaking on how the new tools would aid travel agents, Moore shares that with automated exchanges, agents using Travelport+ can generate 50 per cent (or more) time savings on tasks like processing refunds or exchanges. “Travellers get a ‘self-service’, kiosk-style experience to manage their exchanges – while avoiding the ‘waiting for the next available agent’ user experiences. It gives travellers the ability to easily add extras to their trip, make changes on their own or add their information. It allows us to save time and preserve resources. Currently, Sabre and Amadeus do not have a comparable product that offers this kind of self-service option for travellers,” he said.
Ease of business
Moore elaborates that Smartpoint on Travelport+ benefits agency training programmes for new entrants into travel (for advisors). “Smartpoint cloud works well for agencies’ change management. Three things make Smartpoint better, first is the extensible platform with many additional solutions available, and multiple ways to customise solutions to our particular needs. Secondly, it makes us more efficient because we can integrate many of the complex tasks needed to book and manage traveller needs into one workflow. Also, it has rich multi-source content integration (Travelport has over 400 airlines, including120 LCCs and more than 150k hotels) so that agents can match the quality of traveller’s searches. Agents can take advantage of Smartpoint Cloud advancements that are only going to be available with Travelport+,” he shares.
He further explains that Trip Quote offers truly customised itinerary quotes that help agents become faster at providing travellers with customised itineraries. “Faster Assisted Ticketing capabilities will streamline complex ticketing and exchange tasks (50 per cent or more time savings) as well as support refunds and exchanges,” he says.
New business solutions
Moore shares that through simplified access to multi-source content, Travelport is supporting more content onto virtual shelves in the travel marketplace. “With the recent debut of the latest tools and functionalities, there are 150 per cent more brands, agents can compare – making up-selling easier. With Travelport+, agents will also be able to easily identify upsell offers with NDC and ATPCO fares, for a simpler, more modern browsing and shopping experience. Travelport is also implementing new technology to help manage itineraries originating from diverse sources,” he adds.
Indian market
Moore says that the Indian market remains a priority market for Travelport.
“While government and travel restrictions remain a potential threat for travel recovery in the near future, we fully expect a strong recovery and will support our agency customers and air partners with the travel retailing tools and capabilities needed to help them work more efficiently while delivering exceptional service to travellers,” he claims.
