Eurolines has struck deals with partner travel firms to enable agents to book different components of a holiday separately.
The National Express-owned coach operator has also enhanced the agent section on its website to better guide retailers to its products.
Using the password-protected nxagents.com site, Eurolines can offer its complete range of tickets to agents, point-to-point European reservations, accommodation and insurance. The company said the move had stopped a progressive decline in agent sales and enabled Eurolines to continue to sell half its bookings through the trade.
Commercial manager Steve Way said: “We haven’t consciously gone into the dynamic packaging concept, but we realised we had to change to have a product that agents could sell. The nxagents site has halted a decline in agent sales and has led to real growth through the trade for us.”
He added that Eurolines was ideal for independently minded travellers and said the 1,200 National Express-accredited agents could all benefit from the site and from new deals with Octopus Travel and Travellers Protection insurance services. They supply accommodation and insurance respectively to Eurolines customers through the nxagents site, either as part of a package or separately.
“We are working hard to ensure agents can book different components. For instance, they can print out the insurance documents for customers using the website,” added Way.
He said National Express was also via its websites offering agents different parts to a holiday including airport hotels, London accommodation, insurance and travel passes.
Parent company National Express also allows Eurolines’ customers to connect to international services from London on its inter-city domestic routes for £15, which agents can also sell to clients.
Way said he did not think any other coach company could embrace dynamic packaging like Eurolines, because the likes of Shearings and Wallace Arnold were very much all-inclusive operators.
