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About
In today's tourism industry competitive arena, travel agencies are extremely careful when recommending a destination or a tour package to customers. There are favorable forces that would direct a travel agent towards a destination or tour package. Out of those forces, the first and third most important ones are related to price and commissions. The second most important factor is familiarization trips, the fact of having experienced the service and destination gives travel agents confidence to recommend that destination to their customers. e-famtrips.com will empower tour operators, travel service providers and travel agencies to generate more business while reducing the costs of famtrip programs.
Familiarization trips (famtrips) is a marketing tool used by hotels, cruises, travel service providers, tour operators and tourism bureaus to promote, educate and show travel agents, their products and services.
About e-famtrips TM
e-famtrips is a web-based secure platform designed and built around one of the most powerful marketing tools within the travel and tourism industry; familiarization trips and invitations to travel agents. Our proprietary application empowers travel service providers (hotels, cruises, etc.), tour operators, and tourism bureaus to transform distressed inventory into familiarization opportunities, manage their famtrip programs and establish new relations with travel.
Tourania Competitive Advantages:
(i) Unique and proprietary platform specifically designed for the internal marketing and management of famtrips for the travel and tourism value chain (ii) The close relationships that management has with the owners, CEO's, and Board members of many of the largest travel and tourism companies (iii) Extensive management experience in travel and tourism business opportunities, processes and technology.
Current Situation of Famtrips Programs:
- Famtrips programs are not optimized.
- Restricted to what the service provider and its sales force can communicate to travel agencies.
- 90,000 travel agencies depend on the local wholesaler to offer famtrips to them or subscribe to publications for famtrips information.
- Small travel and service providers do not have the resources to promote their services to travel agencies and wholesalers.
- Fax and periodicals are the best way to find out about famtrips.
- The person that gets invited most of the time is not the one that will be dealing with customers.
- Average US$3,000 administrative cost of each famtrip program.
Distressed Inventory:
- Over 65% of the travel market in the U.S. is not captured by the traditional GDS systems.
- $37 billion in unsold travel inventory per year in the major travel sectors of the US.
- Average load factor of US carriers is less than 70%, with over 500,000 airline seats going unsold daily.
- Average hotel occupancy rate is less than 65%, with 1.5 million hotel rooms remain unsold every day.
- Cruise lines cannot sell thousands of cabins.
- Tour operators sell less than 60% of their inventory.
Benefits:
- Worldwide secure-exchange platform for famtrips and invitations.
- Travel service providers, tour operators and tourism bureaus of any sizes can extend the reach of famtrip programs to travel agencies worldwide (90,000+ Registered IATA).
- Travel agencies can establish new relations with tour operators and travel service providers, not using intermediaries and increasing the commission margin.
- The opportunity to transform in real-time unused and distressed inventory into famtrips opportunities and invitations.
- Network of ratings and comments from travel professionals about destinations and products.
- Control and manage famtrip resources by selecting a target audience.
- Reduce administrative and operational cost of famtrips programs between 50% and 75%.
- Full power, responsibility and control of content, famtrips and invitations.
Famtrips Providers Services:
- Reach travel agencies and travel consortia worldwide.
- Reduce your famtrip administrative cost.
- Allocate unused and distressed inventory by transforming it into familiarization opportunities for travel agencies.
- Receive feedback from travel agencies on your famtrips.
- Keep control and responsibility of your offers and invitations.
Travel Agencies Services:
- Search for famtrips opportunities worldwide in one place.
- Establish new relations without intermediaries to increase your commissions.
- Reserve order and pay your famtrip online.
- Rate famtrips and consult ratings from other travel professionals.
- Request and receive invitations based on your business profile.
Value Added Services:
Targeted Famtrips or Invitations
- Offer a famtrip or an invitation to a selected group of travel agencies.
- Segmentation process based on travel agencies' business profile.
- Travel Agencies can initiate a proposal for a familiarization trip, and it can be answered by any provider with a message or an individual invitation.
Feedback and Ratings
- Access to ratings and comments from travel agents.
- Feedback on the behavior of famtrips and invitations, most popular, best ratted, best sellers, etc.
Internal Message System
- Exchange of communication, alerts, audits, reservations, payments and vouchers are managed through a combination of e-mail alerts and internal messages to increase security.
Payment Mechanisms
- Electronic payment, voucher, and receipt.
Technology Platform:
e-famtrips runs its secure an proprietary application over a platform developed through a partnership with Asterisco Software. The technology is focused on the marketing process of the famtrip tool and its many different permutations and value proposition. This platform is extensible, reliable, scaleable and open-ended since it can communicate and integrate with external catalogs exchanges and other software platforms though XML. Additionally, it provides for high security level and uses strong encryption to assure privacy and confidentiality of the information exchanged.
