WHEN Seligo started out as an accommodation specialist nine years ago, its stated aim was to concentrate on selling through the travel trade.
This strategy appears to have paid off. Seligo has grown from a five-man band to a 50-strong team, from 2,000 bookings to 80,000 – and 95% of its business is still generated through agents.
Its portfolio of products – which now includes hotels, flights and attraction tickets – is sold through more than 3,000 travel agencies, including all the major multiples and independent consortia.
While most other companies are moving more towards direct-sell, Seligo managing director David Cockerton remains committed to the trade.
“Agents are our bread and butter. We wouldn’t want to do anything to upset them,” he said.
When he formed Seligo, Cockerton had a vision that holidays would be sold in the future like cars, with sophisticated customers buying the basic structure and then customising it to suit their own needs. No-one would dispute that independent travel is on the rise, but the high-street travel agent has still remained focused on selling the traditional holiday package or flight-only.
“If we can just get the travel agent to ask the question ‘Do you have your accommodation booked?’ each time they make a flight-only booking,” said Cockerton.
In 1999, Seligo has introduced a number of initiatives to help make the booking process easier for agents. It has implemented the use of the Internet to enable its reservations staff to check availability of rooms and make bookings immediately. It also allows them to deal directly with suppliers and provide travel agents with up-to-date information about hotel availability.
It has also developed an Independent Travellers Self-Study Guide to help agents improve viewdata skills, increase knowledge of Seligo products and maximise commission opportunities.
The new training tool has been designed to help agents with minimal viewdata experience, and to reach agents in remote locations who may not be aware of the advantages of using Seligo.
However, Seligo’s growth figures to date demonstrate how it has already managed to make major in roads.
“Our business is expanding partly because of the growth in independent travel and also because agents are recognising the chances,” said Cockerton.
While Cockerton is satisfied with the current level of business through the trade, he is anxious this could be jeopardised because agents are not adapting quickly enough to developments in technology.
“We’d prefer to sell through the travel agent but it is in danger of being seen as an outdated booking system,” he said.
He said the Internet, Intranet and more importantly Digital TV will all impact significantly on the way people make their travel arrangements and warned agents not to get left behind.
“The technological revolution is going to effect the trade in many ways. We are getting our data into a format so that it can be used which ever way the industry develops. It depends on how the travel agent develops their own internal communications,”he said.
“If an agent doesn’t become part of that chain, it is going to be out. The problem is, it’s moving so fast, it’s difficult to know which way to go.”