Travelport has announced a range of new initiatives in order to increase its visibility as an efficient sales channel for hotel bookings.
The variety of initiatives rolled out by Travelport — such as GDS training for hotels — are intended to boost bookings made through GDS in the Middle East, which are not as high in the region as in the US and Europe.
Travelport vice-president Middle East Rabih Saab said: “Hotel bookings made through GDS are not as high in the Middle East as we would like them to be. But this is slowly changing as more hotel suppliers in the region are recognising the value of the GDS and agents better understand the ease of booking hotels through the GDS”.
The hotel training session was held for representatives from hotel groups such as Hyatt, Rotana, Raffles and InterContinental and was used to explain how the GDS booking process can be effectively used to drive hotel sales.
“Feedback from the training session was very positive, with hotel suppliers keen to improve their hotel sales on the GDS and leverage the tools available on the system to increase their marketability at the point of sale,” added Saab.
Travelport, which is one of the world’s largest providers of global distribution systems (GDS) and operator of the Galileo and Worldspan platforms, has also teamed up with Marriott International to offer hotel training courses that are designed for the Middle East travel trade.
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The seminars, which are being held across the region, are giving Galileo-connected travel agents the opportunity to learn how to make hotel bookings through the system, as well as learning how to sell Marriott’s international properties more effectively to their customers.
Marriott International director of e-commerce and intermediaries Greg D’Souza said: “Our training courses with Travelport provides agents with the knowledge and tools to book hotel rooms efficiently”.
In addition to the training courses, Travelport has announced a partnership with Net Trans, which will provide hotel commission recovery for its agency customers around the world.
The agreement will provide Travelport agents with fully automated commission reporting and collection processing, increasing their commission income while lowering operating costs.
According to Net Trans chief executive officer Martin F. Jørgensen: “Net Trans will help Travelport agencies boost their hotel income. For agents, an effective means of bringing in revenue that requires almost no work on their part is a total win”.
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