Must-Have Features in the Travel Business Portal

Gone are the days, when one used to invest days and months to design a perfect traveling plan. Today neither you need to go and stand in queue for transportation tickets nor roam here and there to find the best hotels for the stay. The travel industry has already shifted from offline to online mode, a few years back. Now travellers are ready with their list of traveling wishes, and it’s the responsibility of travel agency business to make their wishes come true.

To run a successful travel agency business, one must need travel booking software. Your software must be smart and advanced to ease the process of booking transportation tickets, hotels, restaurants, etc. However, who would like to travel somewhere with the responsibility of looking after other activities?

If you are planning to start your traveling agency, here are the must-have features for your travel agency software:

Profile Creation and booking process
The profile creation process on the travel portal should be easy. Allow the multiple profile creation options like creating using email id, through social media, or from mobile number. The profile creation will be the first action taken by the user on your society to book tickets.
The booking process should be easy and short. Make sure you are not asking for too much detail in the ticket booking form, as it can divert the user to other travel agency portals to save their time.

If your booking process is smooth, the customer will come again and again to book their tickets.

Customization packaging option
For traveling, tour packaging is one of the important features. Today people are very particular about their travel accommodations, activities, food, etc. Offering an option to add and subtract few activities from the travel package, will help the customer to buy the best travel package as per their requirement.
Providing limited tour packages will not give your customer the vacation of their dreams. Gone are the days, when people used to make travel plans as per the availability of travel packages in travel agencies. The personalized experience will drag them to visit your travel agency software again for the best traveling experience.

Also, offer them multiple packages of a particular destination by making changes like a number of days, stay in the hotel, participation in any local and cultural activities, etc. While buying travel agency software, make sure you are hiring an experienced company.

Payment method
Keep in mind the payment process is the last step of buying your product and services. Provide your customer’s payment flexibility. Offer multiple payment options like third-party payment applications, payment apps, usage of credit or debit cards.
As everything is digital and fast now, make sure your payment process is fast and secure. The customer will be adding her personal and bank information, the transaction should be safe for you and the customer both. Keeping multiple payment options will even help international travellers to book tickets or hotels without facing any issues.

The more options you will give, the more area of the audience you can attract. Either you can hire software development services to build your Travel agency software from scratch, or buy a white label travel solution like MakeMyTrip from them.

Multi-lingual and currency
How frustrating will it be to convert each word into a local language? While running a travel agency, you will have a wider audience. Your travel agency must be for people from different corners of the world. It is your responsibility to provide a personalized and rich experience to all the visitors.
To attract an international audience, your travel agency software must have multiple languages and currencies supporter features. These features will help you to serve customers of different countries and your revenue will be more.

There are many countries where people speak their local language. While booking any travel package or ticket, for sure they will check the prices. What if you cut the step of transferring the mentioned currency into local currency? It will be a huge deal for them. Reading content on your software will help them to understand your services and they will visit your software over again.

Search Option
Today, we are just one search away from the required information. The customer will not have enough time to go through your software, in brief, to find what she is looking for. Make sure your travel agency should have the search option feature. It will give the liberty to all the customers to directly find the information they are looking for.
Also, you can make it a predictive search. When the customer types the keywords to find the information or services, a drop-down list will be automatically popped up below the search option. This is a great way of eliminating the long list of search results and help the customer to find the relevant information instantly.

Gallery
Will you blindly buy the product without seeing any picture? No, right! For the Travel agency business, the gallery plays an important role. Visuals are the best way to communicate with your audience. Your customers must be looking for breath-taking pictures of their vacation destination. Moreover, it will assist them while choosing hotels, vacation destinations, restaurants, etc.
Make sure the gallery has the best pictures. Try to provide multiple pictures for a single destination or service. Also, you can ask your customers to provide their vacation pictures for the credibility of a customer’s travel agency.

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Travelling Tips for the Disabled

Unlike in the past, today people with disabilities have been recognized, and are less discriminated against. In many countries there are legislations that protect them and make their life a little easier. Also many public buildings have been designed or renovated in order to accommodate people with disabilities.

With all these improvements, people with disabilities are now able to travel for vacation or a business trip to places far away from their home. However, with all these improvements we have made, travelling for people with disabilities is still a challenge for them, especially when they are travelling alone or, they are travelling to an unknown destination. Below is a guide to help people with all forms of disabilities to travel safely.

1. Plan well in advance
Planning is key to any form of success. This is very important because it reduces chances of getting stranded and being inconvenienced. Booking flights and hotel rooms are the top priorities, however if you are going to stay at a friend’s or a relative’s house; notifying them in advance is very important. Then they can be prepared and even pick you up from the airport.

2. Book hotels that are disabled friendly
Hotels with disabled friendly structures are very convenient as they allow disabled individuals to move freely with minimal effort. Most of these hotels also have special emergency protocols that ensure disabled individuals are not left behind in case of an emergency, unlike some hotels where these issues are over looked.

3. Use a travel agent that offers travel packages for disabled travelers
Booking flights and hotel rooms with travel agents that offer travel solutions to disabled people is advantageous in a number of ways. They ensure they book for their disabled clients airlines and hotels that are disabled friendly. They strive to offer services and suggestions that will ensure their clients travel comfortably.

4. Understand and know your rights when at the airport
Travelling, for people with disabilities, is very hectic, especially when they arrive at the airport. They face the challenge of getting proper information and directions. This is further aggravated by the huge number of people traveling and long queues. In airports, there are attendants that are supposed to attend to the needs of those travelling with disabilities.

Disabled travelers should not, and are not, treated differently when they go through security measures. They are also protected from any form of discrimination from any airline. Disabled travelers are advised to be very conversant with their rights to avoid and report any form of discrimination when travelling.

5. Bring extra medication
There is no harm in carrying an extra dose of medication when travelling. People do lose their luggage as they travel so, having an extra dose will act as a backup when one dose gets lost. This also ensures that when travelling, a disabled person does not run out of their medicine forcing them to start looking for a drug store when travelling. These medications should be stored properly to ensure their safety.

6. Take a doctor’s note and contact information when travelling
A doctor’s note contains important information about a condition that a disabled person is facing and this will help doctors save a lot of time on tests in case of an emergency. Contact information for your doctor allows other doctors to get important information from your doctor should the need arise. This small, but vital, information can save lives.

7. Use direct flights
It is very hectic and tiresome for a disabled traveler to use connecting flights. Using connecting flights exposes them to loss of their luggage and even injury as they get in and out of a plane. Using a direct flight cuts all these risks down and saves a lot time and energy when travelling. Direct flights also ensure that those travelling with disabilities are not stranded in an airport as they wait for a connecting flight.

8. Disabled travelers are advised to have some knowledge about where they are travelling to
There is nothing more difficult than looking for directions to a place you do not know about. This is even harder for disabled travelers so, it is advisable to have at least some knowledge and understanding about their destination. This will give them an upper hand when moving around and the knowledge to know where to go and where not to go. This will be very helpful when they are stranded or experience an emergency situation and need urgent assistance.

9. Carry the appropriate luggage
Disabled travelers are advised to carry luggage that they can manage when they are travelling. Unless they have company, travelling with a huge amount of luggage is not easy. Traveling lightly enables disabled travelers to be more flexible to situations that arise besides, a large amount of luggage can also easily get lost.

10. Enjoy travelling
Many disabled people do not travel often because of a lot of limitations which discourages them. However modern technology ensures safe travel for all regardless of their condition. Travelling should be enjoyed by all since it is a chance to experience new things that are different than what they are used to.

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