Pros and Cons of Travel Mid Office System

New business models, competition in global markets and dynamic behavior of travellers has led to shift in the focus of travel agencies to change the way they do their business. The more the booking procedures have become simpler the more critical it is for the travel agency to have sound mid office or back office system which optimizes the processes of their business and also improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the resources at work. Profitability driven travel intermediaries need to focus on revenue generating activities rather than on time consuming administrative work which is followed after the sale.

The main role of travel mid office is to receive the booking from various sales channels such a B2B, B2C, B2B2B, B2B2C, front/back office and manage them to deliver the final document to the customer. It helps in reducing the complexity of work which is involved in information management and coordination between various functions.  The Travel technology companies today are designing advanced travel mid office system for travel intermediaries where they can manage everything from the reservation to invoicing, payment and reconciliatory accounting activities, which is a cost efficient solution that significantly improves their travel business. Using it, the travel agents will spend less time on doing administrative task manually they can now focus on better ways of serving customers.

What makes midoffice unique and important for the travel intermediaries, can be understood with the following features of the system?

·         Booking Management from Multiple Sales Channels- The bookings which comes from various sales channels are processed centrally at one place.

·         Full Automation of Front and Back Office- It combines the front and back office with the booking interface and GDS.

·         Real-Time Booking and Pricing – The travel agents get the access to the real time prices through this interface.

·         Customer Relationship Management Tool- The travel intermediaries can manage their current and future clients through this tool.

·         Handling Complex Markups and Commission- Through midoffice the users can manage the complex sales commission and advance markups for multiple sales channels.

·         Connectivity to Inventories- The midoffice is directly connected to GDS or third party suppliers from where it fetches the real time inventory of airlines, hotels, insurance etc.

·         Reporting- The midoffice system is capable of generating various types of report as per the need of the user.

Travel midoffice is easiest way to work smoothly on everyday travel operations. But just like a coin Midoffice system also has two facets. Therefore in order to understand the implications of the system we need to closely look at the pros and cons of it.

Pros-

1.       With the use to a good midoffice system the employees are relieved from everyday mundane administrative tasks which are time consuming and they can concentrate on more significant business tasks.

2.       Usage of the midoffice system had made it possible to properly allocate resources i.e. a few employees to perform the tasks of many.

3.       Automation of midoffice systems has made it possible to reduce storage space, allowed several employees to access the same data at the same time.

4.       Requirement of staff members is minimized which directly affect business revenue positively.

5.       The travel agents can manage the complex rules of markups and sales commission.

6.       Multiple branches of travel companies can be managed at one place through the system.

7.       The system also enables the travel agencies to manage their subagents and suppliers.

Cons-

1.       The major problem which are faced by travel agencies is the midoffice system is highly priced thus it can be an expensive investment.

2.       In order to make deploy the system the staff has to be trained thus time and cost are involved in training.

Midoffice system also comes with maintenance cost which is again a problem for small travel agencies. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}