Top Five Features of Online Booking Engine

The travel and tourism industry is in constant technological evolution and is continuing to delight both leisure and business travelers as they are taking advantage of innovative new approaches to book and pay for their travel online. There has been a continuous rise from offline to online travel bookings due to the availability of internet on smart devices such as phones, tablets etc. A study shows that nearly 24% of the travelers search travel destinations on phones in India. It becomes vital for the travel companies to have a well-run online booking engine so that it meets the needs of the customers. It should have features which encourage the customers to make return visits on the website.

Now a day’s online booking engines come with advance features and value added tools which benefit not only the customers but also the travel intermediaries. Through online booking engines the travelers can make their travel simpler and smoother by booking multiple services like flights, hotels, cars, sightseeing etc. in one go. To attract and retain the customers the travel intermediaries need to look at the top five characteristics of online booking engine-

• One stop shop- The booking engines should come with functionality to sell all the travel products through a single interface. The users should be able to book for multiple services such as flights, hotels, insurance, packages, sightseeing and transfers etc.

• Connectivity to multiple GDSs and Third Party Suppliers-  The booking engine should support the connectivity to multiple GDSs like Amadeus, Sabre, GTA etc. and the Third party suppliers for Hotels, Packages, Insurance etc. This helps in generating the real time inventory and pricing.

• Multi Language and Multi Currency Capability in Booking Engine- The globalization has made it important for the travel agencies to grow their business strategically this gave rise to the importance of having another important feature of booking engine i.e. multiple language capability and multiple currency capability which help them reaching international markets. 

• Functionality of Cross Sell- Feature of cross sell helps travel agents in attracting the customers influencing them to pre-book other services such as hotel or sightseeing and transfers etc. This helps in increasing the revenue of the travel agencies.

• Booking Engine Enabling Multi Destination Search- The online booking engine should support the multi destination feature which allows the travelers to search the availability and price of the multiple destination in one go. It helps in saving the time of customers as they need not perform separate searches different cities for different dates.

The travellers today have become more tech-savvy, demanding and unpredictable than ever before they look for easier ways of booking hotels, flights, cars, sightseeing and transfers etc. In fact the technology has become so convenient that they can even book on their mobiles or tablets. A powerful booking engine packed with user friendly features helps in delivering high value to customers which indirectly improve the sales of travel businesses. It helps in converting the first time visitors to long term loyal customers. The global trends show that online bookings have reached an all-time high, online travel bookings are expected to increase and will reach approximately $313 billion. These estimates are going to be in favor of all the proactive Travel agents, those who can capitalize this opportunity now can reap revenues in near future.