What should travel companies ask from their tech providers? ITB Berlin conference session George Dumitru speaker

What should travel companies ask from their tech providers? Flexibility and scalability first.

An insightful session presented by wbe.travel’s CEO on the hottest topic of 2021. George Dumitru will join Dirk Rogl in an open session about how travel companies could tip the balance in their favor by asking from their technology partners more flexibility in payments, scalable systems in the cloud and many more.

On the third day of ITB Berlin – ITB NOW virtual event, more precisely on the 11th of March 2021 at 11:00 AM Berlin Time (CET) George Dumitru will share his thought and some tips and trick for using travel technology.

In this current time, with existing low budgets, travel companies are looking for platforms that are already in the market, with proven technology and with enough functionalities and features to accommodate present market requirements.

Since developing own technology, although still an option, implies large costs and even a longer time to market, the trend has shifted now to outsourcing it to a software house. But how can it be done without a large cost paid upfront? Well, the answer is here and has been for several years – online systems, tailor-made for the travel industry, hosted in the cloud.

Furthermore, what is not yet fully embraced by most travel companies, is the existing subscription models or “Pay as you grow” programs for ready-made platforms. These types of models offer flexibility in payments, where the monthly costs to the travel company are in synchronization with the level of business. To explain it even further if sales are up in a month you pay more to support the growth. If sales are down in a certain period, you just pay a small monthly fee to access the service. There is no need for large commitments in an uncertain climate.

Another forward-looking advantage of this approach is that the companies can easily scale down and cut the modules that are no longer in use and scale up the product suite to better manage the business or enrich the offering to their clients. The scaling up and down also goes hand in hand with the level of business the travel company has, as mentioned before.

Ready-made platforms come with specific challenges, as limited customization and an already build pipeline. Once a travel company subscribes to a platform, they will have to adapt their business case and flows to that specific system, as the already built platform is very difficult to be changed especially for particular procedures. But rest assured that the already-built platforms have most of the features that a modern travel company needs, already there, in place.

 

If you haven’t had the time to see the session live you can still view it here:

Interested in finding out more? Discover other articles about how “Agility and flexibility offers small and medium travel companies the edge in the battle for recovery”.