eyefortravel - Travel Distribution India '06

Uniglobe Travel: Understanding technology

ETW Staff

Technology today is fast becoming the single biggest medium for effective global consolidation designed for integration, aggregation, interaction, and processing of travel products for distribution in both B2B and B2C space. Uniglobe Travel (South Asia) is using technology to assist its franchisees to service corporate clients in both online and offline environments. According to Ritika Modi, regional president, Uniglobe Travel (South Asia), "through technology we will ultimately seek to shift to an integrated platform for reservations & ticketing, revenue optimisation and more importantly customer relationship management. Our focus therefore is to source cutting edge travel technology to manage core business processes and customer interactive practices and electronically direct workflow processes in a travel agency environment." Elaborating further, she mentioned," the selection of our technology programs is done after carefully understanding the architecture of the program to ensure the best possible match between end user experience and the commercial priorities of the travel agent."

Given the fact that Uniglobe is the world's single largest - brand travel franchise in which each agency is independently owned and operated, technology plays an important role. Uniglobe, the global franchiser providing travel services entered into an agreement with Modi Tour Services and acquired the Uniglobe master franchise rights to India and surrounding countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan in early 2001. Uniglobe Travel (South Asia) while continuing to look for strategic expansion opportunities in its target market - the mid-sized corporate travel account, has realised the need and importance of automating manual processes to contain costs and increase efficiency.

"In a scenario where most other travel agents are challenged to reach more customers, we help our franchisees streamline internal operations and build efficiency by providing them a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art technology products. These range from mid-office and back office software platforms and online booking and fare search tools to automated quality control modules," stated Modi. The aim according to Modi is to build the profitability of new and existing independent agencies. "We aspire to set the trends in professionalism and introduce new aspects to the travel industry. In order to survive the crisis and the tough competition it becomes important for the small and medium size companies to hook on to bigger set- ups. Therefore, the aim is to minimise the product that we sell in order to maximise the profit," Modi opined.