Balancing Travel and Technology

The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) met recently in Orlando, Florida. One of the sessions on the last day was put together to talk about technology and dynamic packaging. According to some attendees, of all the sessions, it was the least attended. After reading this article, I began to wonder if travel agents, in general, appreciate their predicament.

A colleague, George Heil, and I talked about how it appears that agents appear to be intimidated by technology – to the point, so much so, that they shy away from advances that can bring them back from the brink of failure. I recall reading somewhere that there are fifty percent fewer travel agencies today than there were seven years ago. What was once viewed as being a gate keeper order taker type, agents today are struggling to claw their way back to profitability.

Timothy O’Neil-Dunne of T2Impact Ltd, after an email to him about his rant in a comment posted in response to the Travel Mole article, reminded me that travel agents use only a small fraction of the functionality available to them through the different GDS’. Gracious, if that’s the case, which it is, how can the agencies possibly hope to compete with the Online’s?

That being the case, it’s no wonder they’re not receptive to the positive impact that dynamic packaging could have – deals put together that match your profile attributes – deals that include not only flight arrangements and hotels, but car hire, event / attraction tickets, transfers, tips, you name it. Even vouchers for Joes Dive shop in Aruba; an all inclusive package with one price for everything. For that matter, this type of solution could even facilitate the scenario that satisfies the query of – I have $1000, where could I go and what are the recreational possibilities?

Pretty powerful stuff so how come it’s not embraced?

I have a theory. I think that we’ve become intoxicated with the allure of new technology and the advanced functionality that it enables. Sabre works with a lot of companies in the .com space and we’ve realized quite a few competitive advantages over the past few years. What we’ve not done very well is demonstrate how these advances make things like dynamic packaging a reality. Agents do not want to hear about Java, Jboss, MySQL, etc., they want to know how the solution will enhance their business by retaining existing customers and cultivating new customer relationships.

I think that’s where my teams headed – scratching the business need itch. Not searching for a problem to solve with the latest technology advance.

More on that in the next post.