HOLIDAY Autos is using World Travel Market as the launchpad for an Internet-based booking facility aimed at travel agents.
The service will allow agents to make bookings including lates, print vouchers for late bookings, view existing reservations whether or not they were arranged on-line, cancel bookings and order brochures.
Group marketing and communications director Sara Zimmerman predicts that the number of bookings made over the Internet will be small at first but that eventually it will replace viewdata altogether as the preferred booking method.
“The number of agents with access to pcs is still low but in the long term, access to the Internet will be a matter of survival. It is so much more useful and agent friendly,” she said.
The main Holiday Autos site, www.holidayautos.co.uk, will provide a link to the password protected trade pages, which will also carry details of special deals and general information. This is an important development, according to Zimmerman who said travel agents can not afford to ignore the impact of the Internet on their business.
“Once clients have more information than agents, the agents’ role is threatened. This site will enable them to keep ahead of the game by providing up-to-date information to agents.”
The development of the new booking facility follows the launch earlier this year of a consumer information Internet site.
As yet consumers can not book on-line but according to Zimmerman, it is only a matter of time before they will be able to.