Regional Director Russia & CIS of the B2B.Ostrovok service Daria Kochetkova told what tools will allow you to work effectively in the new reality.
Among the main problems and changes in the tourism market that business has faced and which are shaping this new reality, Daria Kochetkova cited the following:
- Stress due to the geopolitical situation;
- Constantly changing conditions of entry;
- Sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate;
- Departure of large players from the market of aggregators and emergence of new ones;
- Increase in prices for travel services;
- Loss of customers due to reduced purchasing power.
All these factors required the introduction of new tools into the processes. In particular, currency fluctuations in March caused B2B.Ostrovok to fix the exchange rate for overseas destinations at the time of booking for travel agents with the possibility of payment within three days.
In addition, B2B.Ostrovok added payment via the link for MIR cards. Now you can make a booking that meets the conditions for cashback from Rostourism, go to your personal account, generate a link and immediately send it to your customers. This allows agencies to save on acquiring and at the same time receive a commission on bookings. At the same time, all links are anonymized, there is no way to calculate from which aggregator they were generated.
Over the past 2-3 months, B2B.Ostrovok has received an increase of 60% to those objects that were already placed in the system before beginning of March. B2B.Ostrovok currently has 60,216 direct hotel contracts and direct integrations with 64 hotel chains. About 20,000 different accommodation facilities have connected – these are not only hotels, but also mini-hotels, apart-hotels, hostels, glampings, campsites.
“All this can now be booked for travel agents as well. And this is a big plus, because we didn’t have enough apartments before. Everyone came to us with requests that they were needed, especially in conditions when the airports of the south are closed and travel agents need to be able, among other things, to book mini-objects absolutely officially, with their own commission, closing documents “– Daria Kochetkova emphasized during her speech at the TITW 2022 online conference dedicated to anti-crisis areas, products and technologies in tourism.
The service also updated the selection of hotels:
- There is a special section for collections on the main page;
- You can add any fare to the collection;
- You can include different routes (different cities and countries);
- The client will see only the final price in the selection;
- Only the agent's contacts will be in the selection;
- You can book directly from the selection.
Among the innovations, simplified communication with support has been launched. “We have automated part of the support, added requests that can be sent directly from your personal account. They are unified and come immediately to targeted employees in the right departments. Employees are immediately ready to work with this information, the agent sees that his question is already being worked on and after what time they will return to him with an answer ”, the expert shared.
To make it more convenient for agents to work and follow orders, B2B.Ostrovok launched a mobile application through which you can:
- Find, book and pay for a hotel, air ticket, transfer;
- View information on booking hotels, air tickets , transfers;
- Leave a comment on the order;
- Find out the contacts of the curator and support service;
- Set up a “Personal Account”.
Due to the fact that covid restrictions on entry are still in effect in a number of countries, B2B.Ostrovok updates information with requirements for all countries of the world every day.