The travel industry is vibrant and changes rapidly. It is seemingly the reason why more technology partners see gains in serving the big market. With online sales growing at a faster rate compared to revenues from offline sources (like what we get by visiting clients and talking to them on a one on one basis) the race to bolster productivity might not end soon.
Seeing this gap, technology partner for the travel industry, Amadeus, has launched a business intelligence system exclusively for Sub Saharan Africa that aims at helping customers measure their business activity. Billed the “Productivity Tracker”, it provides travel agents with an easy way to monitor, manage and optimize their own performance. Through a 24/7 live data feed based on booking data, travel agents are able to do a whole lot of things including analysing their own operations in real time, gain valuable insights and improve productivity.
When it comes to true productivity and optimization of front office performance, this business tool puts the information and insights right at the fingertips. Back office data for example, can only tell half the story about a travel agency’s operations. Now with this fresh product travel agencies can see their booking agents’ productivity measures accurately at a glance and can expect productivity and compliance enhanced by 60% to 90%.
“There needs to be quick decision making, and data management is key in order to stay at the top. Amadeus aims to provide automation with their solutions,” says Juan Torres, GM Amadeus EA
Manually monitoring data is a travel agency’s biggest challenge, it is a time consuming and inefficient process leading invariably to the loss of important data. By managing data effectively from multiple sources, travel agencies will be able to transform ‘data’ into mission-critical business information. This is a positive shift going by the fact that it is a tool that would make companies, which have struggled with productivity to bounce back quickly.
Deployment of the tracker is progressing well across East Africa with fast and seamless implementation. There are currently 450 users in the system regionally; travel agencies ranging from small and medium enterprises, travel management companies, business travel agencies, leisure travel agencies and large national agencies. The tool has been designed as a web-based tool for easy accessibility.
Caroline Malinda, MD Uniglobe Silverbird Travel Plus, adds, “The amount of on-demand reports that are available help us to understand and analyze areas of opportunity and those that contribute the most to the success of our company. The Productivity Tracker comes at a time that we as service providers and owners need to understand our customers better and this solution delivers exactly that.”
In 2013, Amadeus set up a Regional Solution Centre in Africa with a mission to ensure that the right regional solution portfolio is made available to meet the specific needs of the travel industry across the continent. One such example has been the delivery of the Productivity Tracker. Travel agencies across Africa are now at an advantage, having a complete real time 360-degree overview of their businesses.
