A recent survey of 700 travel professionals conducted by Amadeus North America determined that the top need of travel agencies is “to make more money.” To help, Amadeus’ recent Newsletter offered five suggestions that may work for travel professionals and related them to available Amadeus technology. The Amadeus Newsletter, part of its “I Need” campaign, is promotional but offers sound counsel from one of the industry’s top technology providers.
Amadeus Five Points
1. Pump up your offering
You need to sell more to make more—more vacation packages, stocked with more add-ons like rail passes, event tickets, car rentals, travel insurance and cruise shore excursions. Having comprehensive content is a direct path to more profits for several reasons: you can add more high commission products to your customers’ itineraries; you can find better fares and gain the flexibility to mark them up or pass on the savings to customers. Above all else, you can win repeat business by wowing travelers with the complete vacation packages you put together—or by getting them the rock-bottom prices they need to travel in a challenging economy.
When it comes to comprehensive content, Amadeus Selling Platform is without peer: you get the travel content you need to sell more and the flexibility to earn higher profits.
2. Earn more commissions—without spending a dime
There’s a lot to love about selling leisure packages. It’s a “happy” transaction to whip up a fantastic itinerary for a vacation-bound customer. Plus, booking a cruise complete with shore excursions or a tour rounded out with theater tickets is a great way to offer customers the complete vacation experience, while securing extra commissions for your travel business.
Here’s one more thing to love: Amadeus Vacation Link is a free one-stop leisure shop offering a huge array of high-commission vacation content—available to your travel business at no charge, regardless of GDS affiliation. You can book cruises, tours, consolidator fares, destination content and much more. Plus, with added perks like passport/VISA processing and free Amadeus training, you can build your travel business while plumping up your bottom line.
3. Perfect the art of the “cross sell”
Cross-selling is an essential part of any sales cycle—whether it’s a financial advisor asking if you need more life insurance or a waitress asking, “Want fries with that?” To continue with the restaurant metaphor, if your customers are booking “meat and potatoes” type flight and hotel travel, spice things up by adding theater and sports tickets, transfers, museum passes, sightseeing trips and guided tours to their itineraries. This high-commission destination content, available through Amadeus Activities & Entertainment, not only boosts your profits but also gives your customers a complete vacation experience.
4. Get paid for your great service
“Service fees” might sound like a dirty word—but in this market, they can make the difference between sinking and staying afloat—or maybe even soaring! Plus, you deserve to get paid for the excellent service you provide. With Amadeus Service Fee Manager, you can grow revenues by charging service and activity-based fees and offering consistent and transparent service fee pricing, while also successfully communicating the added value they bring to customers. Using Amadeus Service Fee Manager can boost your revenue from service fees by 28%, according to a 2007 independent international study of service fee management.
5. Win repeat business
The opportunities to make more money as a travel professional aren’t limited to the time of sale. Super-charge your sales by growing repeat business. Accomplish this by doing what you already do best: providing outstanding customer service. Whether you supply the best fares or create the perfect vacation package, your outstanding, personalized customer service is the inspiration behind long-term relationships between your travel business and your customers—and it’s the reason your business cards will get passed on from your clients to their friends, colleagues and family members.
If back-office functions are getting in the way of excellent customer service, consider Amadeus Hosted Agency Solutions to take tedious tasks and accounting out of your hands so you can focus on what you do best. Visit the Amadeus Solution Finder today to discover other ways your business can make more money. Travel agents can obtain more information by visiting www.amadeus.com/ineed.