CENDANT is spending tens of millions of dollars on a new content system, conceding customers have difficulty accessing its products.
Technological deficiencies have been cited for recent poor financial figures posted by the US conglomerate that over the last few years has purchased global distribution system Galileo, flight consolidator Travel2/4 and online agency Ebookers.
Ebookers will be the first company on the new system, modelled along the lines of the Orbitz website that Cendant operates in the US.
Speaking at the recent Travolution Summit, travel distribution services international markets chief operating officer Mike Nelson said: “We have a lot of content out there but we do not have a system to access it.”
Nelson said the large search panel on the Orbitz home page and its dynamic packaging grid that allows customers to evaluate the cost of packaging together different flights and hotels were examples of giving the customer more control.
Lastminute.com chairman Brent Hoberman added: “The industry forces customers to do what it wants them to do,” he said. “For example, we have launched favourite drives on Holiday Autos, but they are our favourite drives – not the customers’.”