Travelport continues Middle East market share offensive
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
Travelport GDS is making further moves to bolster its Middle East market share by staging distributor, supplier and agent workshops that identify best working practice, provide training, strengthen relationships and remind users of new products out soon.The GDS provider recently staged a distributor conference in Lebanon where all Galileo and Worldspan distributors across the region brainstormed and shared best practice to ensure the service they provide to agents is as consistent and efficient as possible.Travelport is also trailblazing greater utilisation of the GDS in 2010 by highlighting how easy - and lucrative - it is for agents to make land and sea bookings.The idea of the two-and-a-half day distributor gathering, said Travelport Regional Commercial Director Jennifer D’Souza, was for the company to share its vision and upcoming plans while distributors brainstormed to identify best practices region-wide.”Each market gave a presentation and talked about the top three changes they had made in 2009 and how they had helped,” she said.”We found that issues in one market could be solved by best practice from another market.”We also presented examples [of best practice] from the Asia Pacific and European markets.”D’Souza said workshops on product strategy and customer support and service were also staged at the event, as well as media training.”We need to make sure the Travelport message is each market is consistent and that because they are agents’ first port of call [in each market], customer support systems are strong,” she said.”The objective for 2010 is that travel agents continue to see us as market leaders, whether it’s for support, service or product strategy.”D’Souza said 2010 would also see Travelport push land and sea products via the GDS with training courses - for both hoteliers and travel agents - already underway.The company has joined forces with Marriott to run classroom-style seminars for the Middle East travel trade to give Galileo-connected travel agents the opportunity to learn how to make hotel bookings through the system, as well as how to sell Marriott’s international properties even more effectively to their customers.”We have similar initiatives planned with Fairmont, Rotana and Jumeirah,” said D’Souza.”Agents still see the GDS as a tool for booking air only but we want to show them that making land and sea bookings online can be quick and lucrative.”
Comments are closed.