An In-House Information System Is Now A Requirement

Because the agency is no longer the sole purchase channel for travel products, the agency now needs to become more aggressive and cost-effective in standard business practices of marketing, quality assurance, and handling higher volumes of sales at lower profit margins. In sum, the agency has to go out and get the business now, it isn't just going to appear out of the blue anymore. There are too many dollars going into alternative distribution channels such as supplier direct retail sales and online travel agency sales.

If you don't have an internal information system at this time, it is recommended to at least get something. In our estimation, the ability to process higher sales volumes at lower margins is going to be a key to survival in the future. The agency MUST decrease the cost per transaction in order to compete with other travel distribution channels.

Integration Of Supplier Inventory With CruisePak

What we are really talking about here is Duplicate Data Entry. Currently, agents enter bookings into the Global Distribution System (GDS) or they enter in a customers booking in the agent area of a suppliers website. This is good for the supplier in that the supplier gets the transaction, but not so good for the agency.

An Agency's travel transactions exist all over the place. They're in the GDS, they're at the individual supplier websites, they might even be simply called in to no man's land. Regardless, implementing CruisePak at least centralizes the location of your travel transactions and gives you a starting point if you need to address specifics about a particular booking with the supplier.

The major downside to this though is that unless the supplier inventory and purchase is integrated with CruisePak, the agent must re-key the booking information into CruisePak manually. This Duplicate Data Entry is a HUGE COST.

With CruisePak, we have to go to each supplier, one by one. There is no standard that they all conform to from an information technology standpoint so we have to bring it all together ourselves. And, it is a slow process.

Plus, it doesn't appear that supplier's are all that interested in expending the investment dollars necessary to make agency integration with their systems a top priority. It appears that they would rather spend their information technology dollars on the retail sales direct channel. So, the process goes slow. Right now, we have Amadeus Cruise. We are working with or are planning to work with other suppliers as the need arises.

Concluding, we realize this is the "Rosetta Stone" and we are working slowly at it. We need help from you on this as sales volume for a particular supplier really helps our case.

Accounting System Integration

CruisePak has it's own integrated internal accounting system. It is a full general ledger system that runs the business on either a cash or accrual basis. You don't need to export data out of CruisePak to put it into an accounting system. Because CruisePak is a travel based system, we understand the need for agencies to run their business from an accrual standpoint (chasing down commissions, final payments), but in reality, run their business as cash because of tax ramifications (paying taxes on income not received). CruisePak has a full chart of accounts, balance sheet, income statement, account reconciliations, etc.

However, we understand that you might want to use a third party system such as Quickbooks, Great Plains, or Oracle. (We'll talk about Trams later). CruisePak integrates with Quickbooks right out of the box. Just do a little configuration and You can send transactions right out of CruisePak into Quickbooks. If you are a small to mid sized agency, this might be a viable alternative.

If you are a larger agency, then the Great Plains/Oracle might be the way to go. Again, CruisePak accounting is fine and will save you countless bookkeeping dollars, but if you prefer going with an industry standard, then we will need to customize the interface for you.

With regard to Trams, We Will Not Be Integrating With That Product. Trams is owned by Texas Pacific Group, which also owns Sabre and Travelocity. Because Travelocity is an online agency that competes with the traditional travel agency and home based agent, we will not support that system or any product for that matter, that may, either directly or indirectly, fund the Travelocity system.

Remote Access, Outside Agent Remote Access

In combination with Windows Terminal Server and Website Development of an Outside Agent Oriented portion of your website, you can implement a remotely accessible solution via the internet such that total connectivity of your organization can be achieved.

The technology ironically, is the same as is discussed for our home based agent users. Please refer to that discussion for the specifics; meanwhile realizing that location references should be overlayed with your own locations.

Scalability

The limiting factor in all Information Technology is the data storage engine that functions behind the scenes. As your data volume (customer and booking data) grows in size, the need for more advanced storage solutions arise.

CruisePak is designed to be a fully compliant Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) application. That means that as you grow, and the need for you to purchase thrid party relational database management systems ensue, that CruisePak can integrate seamlessly with these advanced solutions. Of course there will be the need for tweaking, but all in all, you won't be stuck with a solution that has a data size limiting shelf life.

Online Customer Relationship Managerment (CRM)

The primary element that is lacking from most all Travel Agency websites is the ability for customers to log in and manage their travel. Yes, they have the ability to book online at your websites, but from the customer perspective this is a black hole. Customers want to view their account, much like they do at amazon.com or Ebay.

Using the CruisePak Connector technology, in combination with the CruisePak API (web 2.0 compliant), one can construct a fully integrated online CRM package that can inspire customer loyalty and possibly open the agency up to businesses who want to manage their travel online with you, as opposed to the mega online agencies.

Online Inventory Network

If you utilize the Inventory Management features in CruisePak, you can expose your available inventory to your retail customers, branch offices, and/or outside associates. In fact, from a technological standpoint, you can even define yourself as a supplier network to your affiliates from which they can book into blocked space.

We must admit that this is immature technology, but being on the cutting edge is what defeats the competition. Starting now with the concept makes you that much farther ahead of the competition when they finally get the picture.

Other Technologies Available

If you are looking for a certain advanced technology, we are 90% sure that we have the technology ready to go. But, because of the competitive nature of the technology, we have elected not to display them in this public forum. However, If after thorough evaluation of the CruisePak product, and the decision to go full speed with implementation, we can address these technologies with you through Non-Disclosure agreements.

The Case For CruisePak

First and foremost, CruisePak enhances the Agency Distribution Model and through it's tools, should make the agency more cost competitive; and thus make suppliers look more favorably upon the agency distribution model as a means by which to distribute their products.

Granted, there is competition within the Agency Distribution model. However, from a macro perspective, we believe that if suppliers realize that this model, which has built them up for the last 30 years, is one that deserves capital investment dollars, then everyone benefits.

CruisePak is not affiliated with any other models; direct sale or online mega agency. Thus, we offer a solution that doesn't fund these solutions, unlike some other products do. After all, if you're using a product that is sponsored by a company that functions in another distribution channel that takes business away from you, isn't that like paying your competitor monthly for just being there?

In closing, we believe that CruisePak can help your business grow. CruisePak tracks your cruise bookings, tour bookings, and all general travel bookings (air, car, hotel, etc.). In addition, it helps you in marketing your travel agency and it helps you in keeping track of all the financial transactions normally associated with running a travel business.

Copyright 2010 pfsSoftware, All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement   Advertise