Tour Travel Management Software: A Guide to Choose

Travel and tourism sector is outperforming many other global economic sectors since 2012. This is a huge indicator of profit and growth for those who are running travel agency and are a part of this industry.

As a travel agency, you wear many hats. You prepare customized tour packages for customers, manage their travel bookings, recommend best hotels in their budget, and arrange for the reservation. This is what you do on the customer front.

However, there are plenty of inside jobs that you have on your plate to run your agency successfully such as marketing activities, sales operations, accounting tasks, etc. And to perform all these functions effectively and smoothly, a tour travel software comes in handy.

However, a software can prove to be of use only when it matches your specific business needs. Before purchasing the right tour travel software, you need to consider the following factors:

• Scalability and Flexibility

Scalability of a software is a critical point for a growing tour travel business. Your tour & travel business is likely to expand with time, so any software you choose should be such that it can keep up with your business growth.

Let’s say you’re currently providing domestic travel services and planning to provide international tour packages in the near future. In this case, more airlines, hotels will be listed on your website, and more customers will come. Does the tour travel software you are investing in provides scalable features to support your ventures?

A software should not be only scalable but flexible as well. For instance, if you switch to OTA from offline travel service mode, the tour travel software should be supportive.

• Payment Flexibility

The tour travel management software should support flexible and secured payment gateways – Debit card, net banking, cheque, MasterCard, UPI etc. It will be beneficial for both, you and the customer. You will get paid instantly and smoothly. And the customer will get plenty of secured options to choose from.

• Multilingual & Multi-Currency

Customers like customized services, and a travel system which supports multiple languages and currencies delivers the same. Moreover, a feature like this allows you to run travel business across the globe efficiently.

If a customer, who’s residing in USA, visits your website, the solution will display the content in English and package price in US.

• Simplicity

How easy is it to use the software? This is one of the key factors to consider before investing in any software. If you think a tour travel software is going to demand a lot in terms of your time, trust us, it is not at all worth investing!

The tour travel software you invest in should and assist you in executing your task effortlessly.

Suggested Read: Tour Travel Management Software: A Guide to Choose

• Reservation Management

Reservation management is one of the most important processes of any travel agency. Manually keeping a track of reservations across the sales cycle isn’t easy. There are n number of customers, airlines, hotels, tour packages, and permutation & combinations of the same is innumerable.

You need a flexible tour travel software to monitor and manage reservations automatically. Additionally, it will be easier with a software to keep tabs on invoices, payment status, and vouchers.

• Billing and Accounting

Billing and accounting tasks are critical for your business. A tour travel software, irrespective of its nature must facilitate both. It should notify you regarding the payment status, whether you have received partial or complete payment.

Your clients should have the convenience of accessing their invoice online. Moreover, you should be able to reconcile the bank statement and easily identify the account receivables & payables using the software.

• Multiple Sales Channels

Whether you are planning to open travel agency soon or already running it, you are likely to have multiple sales channels through which you will be rendering your services. Also, you must be selling tour & travel packages directly to your customers through agents and sub agents.

And, your customers can make the reservations over a phone call, through the website or using a mobile app. In case of agents and sub-agents, you will be paying them commission and you will be required to keep a track of the same.

In case where payment has been received directly from the customer, you need to keep tabs on the same. Ensure that a tour travel software you are planning to buy facilitates payment through multiple sales channels.

Conclusion

So, now it will be easier for you to decide what are the features you must look forward to while buying a tour travel software. You can also talk to an expert who can help you make the right tour travel software. To know more, click here.