Club Travel, which was acquired by Travelstart towards the end of 2019, will be rolling out a new booking platform powered by Travelstart technology to Club Travel partners over the next few weeks and months.
“We are using lockdown as an opportunity to fast track these integrations over the next few weeks and believe our new booking platform will take the Club Travel franchise and ITC programmes to another level,” says ceo of Club Travel, Gary Mulder.
“In partnership with Travelstart, we are offering our ITCs a fully integrated website solution, which will increase their visibility. We will be able to distribute rich content that will include competitive rates – both GDS and NDC fares – and ancillary services, giving ITCs’ clients various options to choose from and resulting in quicker conversation rates.
The Club Travel group believes that maintaining an Iata licence has become an administrative and financial burden to agents, particularly in present circumstances, says Gary. “Our new system will allow agents to auto-ticket themselves reducing the requirement for an Iata licence even further.”
Lockdown support
Club Travel has established a crisis management team to assist ITC partners with a number of initiatives, including UIF queries and applications for tourism relief funds, says Club Travel’s executive manager: franchise for Club Travel, Jo Fraser.
Club Travel has paid out over R10 million in overrides to partners with the next payment due at the end of July. “This has been a great relief to our partners at a time when few bookings are coming in,” says Jo.
“We also have dedicated staff looking at continuously changing airline policies and assisting partners with their refund and amendment queries. We have quadrupled our BSP team to assist with refund processing timeously. Club Travel have also waivered costs on tech solutions, accounting and admin fees for the next few months,” she says.
