Travelport arms agents with new interactive tools

Travelport arms agents with new interactive tools
By admin


New technology is catching up with the way people think about travel, offering them more visual and interactive ways of buying holidays from a travel agent or online, according to Travelport.

The technology provider, which released the latest version of its point-of-sale application Travelport Smartpoint in Australia today, has been working hard to innovate in this space, president and chief executive Gordon Wilson told Travel Today.

He highlighted new developments such as “fuzzy” search which allows agents or consumers to search on the basis of experience rather than destination, along with new mapping functions that visually show the flight path of a client and where they stopover.

These types of features can stimulate interaction between an agent and a client, with the agent able to show the client on a screen where they will be going, or using fuzzy search to inspire them to try something new.

“The best travel agent in the world can only remember so many things in their head – they are only human after all. The main skill of being good travel agent isn’t being a walking atlas,” Wilson explained. “These things are all there to enhance the travel agent’s capability – if they can show the client on a map, it makes it a more interactive experience.”

The new release also includes the integration of the eNett virtual payment system which previously had to be accessed via a separate portal.

“It’s making it even easier to use some of these new state of the art capabilities and virtual card payments are going to be massive going forward,” Wilson said.

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