Travel Leaderswill hold its first-ever, stand-alone technology symposium on June 16 with more than 100 attendees, including Travel Leaders larger travel agency members, their chief information officers and IT personnel. The symposium will put technology front and center and includes 20 major travel technology firms and suppliers. In addition to a morning trade show, Travel Leaders will offer workshop tracks specifically geared toward business-oriented agencies along with those with a leisure focus. Prior technology symposiums have been offered in tandem with Travel Leaders annual national meetings.
“Not only does this symposium offer Travel Leaders the opportunity to learn more about leading-edge technology that can enhance their ability to better serve business and leisure clients, but it also allows them yet another chance to share best practices in this critical operational area,” noted Roger E. Block, president of Travel Leaders Franchise Group.
Major technology providers participating include: BookingBuilder Technologies, CareerBuilder, Concur Technologies Inc., Cornerstone Information Systems, FedEx, Globalware, Grasp Technologies, Inc.,GroupMinder, nuTravel, Park ‘N Fly, Passport Online, TravCom, Travel GPA, Travel Leaders – Q3, Travel Research Online, TravelLeaders.com, Travelport, Triplt, Trondent Development Corp., TRX, Inc., VAX VacationAccess and Verizon Wireless.
Key technology workshop topics include:
Making Sense of Corporate Online Booking Engines and How to Sell Them to Corporate Accounts— This workshop will discuss and compare the preferred booking tools available to Travel Leaders, including the differences, benefits and challenges to each program, while helping Travel Leaders members better appreciate when to offer these programs to their clients. They will also learn how to incorporate these booking tools into RFPs, and how to sell them. This workshop will enable sales managers and account managers to better articulate the features and benefits of Travel Leaders’ self-booking technology offerings when presenting to their business customers and prospective clients.
Travelport GDS: Solutions to Help Your Agency Succeed— This workshop will show how ePricing enhancements provide improved pricing accuracy and an increased number of answers returned in Travel Leaders’ shopping requests. Attendees will learn more about Globalware, Travelport’s accounting system, and learn how to automate PNRs from the GDS avoiding manual re-entry, track commissions, and enjoy comprehensive data management and reporting capabilities. Travel Leaders will also hear about Travelport’s recently announced partnership with Worldmate to provide mobile trip management through the TMC channel.
Powering Your Business with VAX VacationAccess— This workshop will teach how VAX’s new powerful tools help Travel Leaders’ agents shop and book more efficiently to maximize profits. Attendees will learn how the new and improved VAX can help their agents save time marketing to clients and up-sell more effectively, search faster, add commission directly on the reservation, access exclusive promotions, and quickly copy reservations online with Travel Leaders’ preferred suppliers.
The Fundamentals of the Confusing World of Telephony— This workshop will showcase experts discussing how today’s telephone technology can help small business owners save money, improve communication, manage calls and increase agent efficiency. Specific subjects that will be discussed will be hosted voice, voice over IP (VOIP), remote users, ACD phone systems, mobile communications and much more. The presenters will also share tips on negotiating with the carrier including validating the carrier and the contracted rates.