myTourplan

Introduction

Your consultants spend more than 40% of their time managing supplier communications for hotels, car rental and other supplier bookings. Through Tourplan's online supplier connectivity this can be halved, a saving of 20% of your consultant overheads.

Add to that easy and instant access to a full range of hotel/car rental/other supplier rate plans and dynamic rates, no-delays and no manual supplier confirmation process for on request bookings, and exposure of all these benefits through Tourplan's online distribution tools (webConnect and hostConnect).

Tourplan's Connectivity and Enterprise Editions empowers your Tourplan back office and online distribution systems with real-time search and booking facilities with external supplier systems, effectively automating the entire purchasing, selling and operations processes.

Purpose of this document

This document is designed to:

  • outline the key features and benefits to you, the Tour Operator, of online supplier connectivity

  • summarise the encompassing business processes and what it means to your day to day operations

Online Supplier Connectivity, what it is...

Via direct online connections with hotel, car rental and other supplier systems such as central reservation systems (CRS's), global distribution systems (GDS's) and Channel Management Systems, Tourplan provides you with the ability to instantly search for and book services from within your Tourplan in house and internet (hostConnect & webConnect) FIT booking modules.

Key features include:

  • access to products at dynamic rates including 'best available rate' (BAR), 'rate of the day' and other special rate

  • access to products at nett rates (where supported by the supplier systems)

  • the ability to view and compare on the same screen, rates and availability from your own Tourplan database alongside rates and availability from the external supplier systems

  • bookings made are automatically and simultaneously created in both your Tourplan system and the external suppliers system

Key benefits to you, the tour operator...

  • Instant confirmation (or indication of no availability) for bookings

  • Access to additional product rates and inventory including special offers, best available rate, rate of the day and last minute rates, all without needing to monitor manual supplier communications and update your internal database

  • Significant efficiency gains via automated searching, communications and bookings processes

    • Current manual methods of processing request supplier bookings take from several minutes up to 24 or more hours (depending on availability and response times).

    • Bookings made via Tourplan's online supplier connectivity will take from 10 to 60 seconds (depending on number of online searches preformed)

Manual booking versus Tourplan online connectivity

Manual booking process

Key Note: The update Tourplan booking step above includes manually entering information which as service status, supplier confirmation number and possibly price overrides into the Tourplan service line.

Online connectivity booking process

Key Note: The 'Confirm Booking' step above automatically enters the service line into your Tourplan booking with the correct status, supplier confirmation number and rates (where applicable). Additionally the booking is automatically made in the external supplier system.

How it works...

Simply put, Tourplan provides and manages the software and connectivity to external supplier systems in a centralised online platform, and you manage which suppliers and products in your Tourplan database you wish to allow external search and book facilities.

More specifically:

  • you still negotiate directly with the suppliers as you currently do, however in some cases this may now mean, in addition to your contracted nett rates, negotiating an agreed commission (and terms & conditions) applicable for booking dynamic rates

  • you define in Tourplan which suppliers and their associated product you wish to enable external connectivity to

  • you can also configure in Tourplan whether you want to:

    • combine and show rates from the external supplier systems with rates in your own system, enabling instant rate comparison with your contracted rates and supplier dynamic rates

    • view rates from the external supplier systems, separately from your own contracted rates loaded in your Tourplan system

    • from within your Tourplan FIT booking modules you will be able to search for, display and book services sourced in real-time from the external supplier system(s). All this happens seamlessly with Tourplan - there is no double entry of bookings and no accessing other system interfaces to search and make the booking

    • agents/clients using your webConnect or hostConnect online booking facilities will likewise be able to see and book products sourced in real-time from the external supplier system(s)

    • when you book a product via Tourplan's external supplier connectivity, the service is automatically added to your Tourplan booking and likewise the booking is automatically made in the external supplier system

    • the service in your Tourplan booking hold all the usual operational and accounting details for onward processing, accounting and reporting

    • there is no need for you to invest in new hardware or software - all you need to connect to external supplier systems is a standard internet connection and the latest Tourplan version

There are also key benefits which make this attractive to your suppliers...

  • considerable efficiency gains and reduction in overheads via automated communication and booking processes with you the tour operator

  • increased booking volumes through ease of access to inventory for request bookings

  • increased booking volumes through distribution of additional rates and inventory to you such as dynamic rates, specials offers and last minute inventory