Comprehensive travel seems to be the name of the game when it comes to today’s traveller, with an increasing number of travellers deferring to automated booking tools, online booking platforms and even booking the entirety of their trip on their phone (83% of Gen Z and 86% of Millennials, in fact.)
At Bedsonline, when it comes to the question, 'why use a travel agent' that customer so often ask, we've been thinking about the answers! Not just the benefits of a travel agency for customers themselves, but the benefits of travel agents working with a travel partner that allows you to provide those comprehensive, personalised travel opportunities and booking experiences that travellers are looking for.
And of course, it’s important to remember that comprehensive doesn’t just involve what products you can offer, it also encompasses how you as agents handle the overall customer journey.
It's about the quality of service, and depth of experience you can offer travellers to ensure they get the most out of each booking with you.
To offer this kind of comprehensive, deeply personalised service that many travellers are looking for nowadays, you need a travel partner that strives to improve not only the value of offering for the end customer – the traveller – but also the interconnectedness of travel agents with other travel providers the world over.
Of course, all that sounds great on paper, but what does this mean for you, and where does Bedsonline come in?
By providing intelligent travel technology solutions, like our Booking Engine, or our search and recommendation tool Insights, and combining these with an expansive global portfolio and on-the-ground sourcing teams, we strive to empower your business with choice, support, flexibility and agility when it comes to accommodating today’s traveller.
Our way of working, as part of a global ecosystem under our parent company HBX Group, ensures that while our products are informed by a vast wealth of data we are also connected to traveller markets themselves, and therefore understand what it is that you as travel agents need to continually progress and to really compound all those benefits of a travel agency that your clients are expecting.
Let’s take a closer look at those products and offerings now ...
Not only are we sitting on a vast data lake as a travel partner, but we use this wealth of real booking data to power our search and recommendation tool, Insights!
Insights is designed specifically for travel agents, to help you capitalise on demand and keep abreast of the ever-changing preferences of your specific market.
What data powers Insights, you ask?
All of this combines into an intelligent data solution designed to improve the way you work, enhancing the opportunities you can offer your clients from the get-go.
Of course, as an experienced agent you already know what’s important when it comes to attracting the interest of travellers, its one of the main answers to that question of why use travel agents in the first place! But having market-specific recommendations at your fingertips allows you to take this expertise even further.
These personalised recommendations – for destinations and experiences – are predicted by Insights’ complex algorithm, and designed to offer you opportunities that closely match the current and upcoming preferences of your market.
Increased personalisation enhances the value of your travel product offerings and your inherent value to each of your customers, putting you ahead of your competition and keeping your customers returning time and time again!
Read more about Insights here.
It’s critical that all travel providers are equipped with a booking platform that makes each transaction as smooth as possible, because the booking stage of any journey is the most important. It’s where you secure business, where you bolster your reputation with another high-quality customer experience, and where a brand or company can make or break itself.
As travel agents, of course you know this already and one of the advantages of a travel agency is the ability to offer a broader scope of opportunities than travellers may be able to find themselves - or certainly, be able to refine those quicker to offers that suit their needs more quickly.
So why not consolidate the often disparate sources of travel products into one intuitive platform?
Travellers, just as any customers, value the quality of service they receive when they’ve got their money on the line. So being able to maximise their booking experience with personalised hotels and experiences based on their preferences, easy, flexible payments, and a perfect travel itinerary is key.
Combine our vast data lake with a user-friendly interface, and your get our Booking Engine. Informed by the billions of searches performed daily, real-market data, and six million intelligent algorithms, our Booking Engine makes it easier than ever to compete in the marketplace.
But what does our online booking platform let you do, we hear you cry! Well:
Our vast data lake offers a wealth of market-specific knowledge that we can capitalise on, to help our clients generate demand, while our intelligent cloud-based platforms enable our partners to work at speed – which is important in a fast-paced industry such as travel.
With around 4bn searches per day, 29 algorithms and a 91% accuracy rate, our data intelligence serves as a catalyst for travel agents aiming to unlock their full potential.
Our use of data solutions combined with our travel distribution model means that we help our travel clients at all stages of the travel journey gain visibility even in those hard to reach markets. And of course, this means that you can take advantage of more opportunities reaching your own market as a result, and how we work to truly connect you as travel agents with the rest of the travel world.
Why? Because it's our business to empower your business.
It’s our ongoing mission at Bedsonline to offer our clients, and therefore as an extension the end traveller, as much choice as possible when it comes to travelling and connecting with the world.
So it’s a good thing that we’re already a key connector in the industry, giving travel agents just like you the keys to a whole host of opportunities thanks to our global network!
One of the ‘keys’ that we offer is our expansive portfolio of travel products.
Transfers, experiences, hotels, tickets, car rental – we are all about empowering the world of travel and our Booking Engine does just that, offering easy access to the thousands of hotels and travel products or services that we offer to our clients.
Whether your clients are seeking a truly immersive experience in their destination of choice, the perfect hotel to rest and relax in after a long day of sightseeing, a transfer to make getting from A-B even easier, or even car hire to better explore their chosen destination, it’s our mission to connect travel providers to the products, services and experience you need in order to offer every traveller their ideal getaway.
And with over 200,000 hotels in 170+ countries worldwide, combined with 16,000+ experiences, global transfer rates and car hire available exclusively to our clients, it’s no surprise that thousands of travel providers are already trusting us to empower and connect them in the world of travel.
This connective power makes us at Bedsonline the ideal travel partner for agents looking to expand their reach, capitalise on demand, and enhance their offerings to capture valuable opportunities, even from hard-to-reach segments.
Closely linked to our travel portfolio, is our global network of travel providers, and all the benefits this brings you as agents.
Over 66,000+ travel providers around the world make up our global network, including agents just like you, airlines, affiliates, tour operators, OTAs, and wholesalers. This means that by accessing our portfolio and using our services, you're simultaneously increasing your reach, with travel products and opportunities from providers all over the world!
This increased reach is another of our ‘keys’, opening streams of revenue and markets that may not have been accessible otherwise.
Having more accessibility to other travel providers and their products also means that when you’re working with Bedsonline, you’re not only receiving exclusive perks such as our specially negotiated rates, an expansive global portfolio, intelligent tools to up your game, but you’re also becoming part of a globally recognised network of travel providers all working together to improve the industry and traveller experience all at once. Not to mention an increased portfolio with which to wow your clients, which arguably, is the whole point!
You need a travel partner armed with the data, distribution model and technology to ensure that you’re able to seize every opportunity possible.
Luckily, as we form part of the wider HBX Group, by working with Bedsonline you’re accessing the vast range of interconnected products services and distribution channels available as part of our travel ecosystem. What does this mean?
A whole host of worldwide sourcing and distribution experts at your fingertips, with their fingers on the pulse of your market, negotiating contracts on the ground to provide exclusive rates and deals on hotels and travel products in the world’s most-loved and hidden-gem destinations!
Our promotions are tailor-made to delight your clients, using a combination of our knowledge and technology, and our incredible sourcing experts, to offer promotions and seasonal campaigns driven by data: historic search data, seasonality, booking and itinerary data, and more!
This means that throughout the year, you’ll have the chance to take advantage of exclusively negotiated deals on some of the best destinations and activities out there, to incentivise and inspire your clients.
And of course, this includes booking incentives! Because even the very best travel agents need to be rewarded for the hard work and dedication that goes into securing successful and enjoyable trips for travellers time and time again.
... so you can cater to your clients on an individual basis.
The Star Brochure is one of the most beneficial tools that we at Bedsonline offer to travel agents in order to streamline the way that you work, and ultimately increase bookings - alongside our global portfolio, of course!
To capture the attention of today’s traveller, you must be equipped with an arsenal of amazing hotels in trending destinations and the ability to inspire your clients.
This is exactly what the Star Brochure offers: an enticing way to showcase the very best of our 200,000 hotels in must-visit destinations all over the world, through images, dynamic video galleries, inspiring articles to whet their travelling appetite, travel advisor interviews, and valuable top tips designed to excite both you and your clients!
A fully digital travel brochure means that we can:
Not only this, but the Star Brochure has handy ‘Best For’ categories which are included throughout the brochure, making it even easier to identify the perfect hotel for every client on an individual basis!
Discover how to customise your very own travel brochure here.
So, there you have it. Just a few of the ways that Bedsonline offer those all-important ‘keys’ that will help you unlock new opportunities, new ways to grow and improve your services for travellers the world over!
