A new business, comprising ITC and online corporate travel management divisions, has been established by Michelle and Elisna Bergset, who are actively recruiting industry members to sign up with them.
“Leveraging the work-from-home culture that has developed as a result of the lockdown and, with technology at its core, BOLD Travel and Technology delivers an easy-to-use reservations system featuring thousands of hotels, tours, rail services and sporting events. As consortiums reduce their shopfronts and a more flexible ‘millennial’ way of working takes off, our offer provides experienced consultants with a platform to launch their own businesses and embrace a new way of remote working,” says founder and ceo of BOLD Travel and Technology, Michelle.
Michelle is driving BOLD’s ITC offering and aims to recruit consultants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company offers three ITC options, including a full BOLD solution, a franchisee solution and a land-only ITC option.
“We offer ITCs who sign up free usage of our reservations system until the end of December 2020, as well as a model that includes 100% commission, biannual override payments, educationals and other incentives. ITCs can also have a website designed with our booking tool incorporated for a small fee. There is also an information support desk to assist with sourcing product not included in the tool,” explains Michelle.
The company says in its marketing information that its offering includes a free Amadeus conversion course, personal indemnity cover, seamless accounting and tax services, dedicated IT, ticketing and fulfilment teams, marketing and PR support, personal mentorship and coaching, a concierge service for high-nett-worth clients, a database to draw enquiries from and access to influencers and industry stalwarts to promote the ITC brands.
Md of the company, Elisna, is spearheading the corporate technology offering. She says BOLD Travel and Technology was established to provide passive income streams to BDMs and consultants, who have lost their jobs during the pandemic, while they look for new positions.
She says BOLD is concentrating on tapping into the large “unmanaged travel” market in South Africa that comprises SME companies whose employees currently book their own business travel arrangements online. She is encouraging industry professionals who sign up with BOLD to pass on contact details of SME companies that travel frequently. Elisna will then approach the corporate and sign them up to the BOLD corporate online booking tool. Whenever the corporate processes a booking the BDM will receive a portion of the transaction fees, providing them with a pipeline of passive income.
“All the BDM needs to do is introduce us to the client and set up a meeting. Business development is my jam and I step in at that point and pitch the system to the client,” says Elisna.
She says BOLD’s system offers corporates “the best prices in the SME space in South Africa”. Elisna claims that companies will save up to 37% on nett airfares booked through the system, and only pay a very small transaction fee. The system allows for multiple forms of payment, offers corporates the option to incorporate booking approval layers and can be individually branded for each client. Set up takes approximately one hour from deploying the technology to allowing corporates to be able to book, says Elisna.
“BOLD Travel and Technology was set up to help industry members during this time and it isn’t our intention to go after existing agencies’ corporate clients. We encourage BDMs to refer to their employment contracts before passing client details on to us and to rather source SMEs, with unmanaged travel potential, from their personal contacts,” she says.
