The market is moving the role of agents back to that of the 'Trusted Advisor', feels Mitch Gross, president, Tra

The market is moving the role of agents back to that of the 'Trusted Advisor', feels Mitch Gross, president, Travel Agency Services, The Americas, Galileo.

Published: 05 Oct 2005

The market is moving the role of agents back to that of the 'Trusted Advisor', feels Mitch Gross, president, Travel Agency Services, The Americas, Galileo.

"In order to provide consultative customer service, agents need to have
access to the broadest and most exclusive content and the technology to
efficiently match it to customer needs. At Cendant we have made the
necessary investments and are leveraging our supplier relationships to
ensure our customers have just that. In the not too distant future, we
will roll out our market leading innovations such as point of sale
merchandizing, allowing among other things, agents to shop by amenities,
not just location, to provide clients with tailored travel offerings.
We provide agents with the product and marketing materials to have the
greatest breadth of choices and greatest advice on travel. All of our
content and productivity tools allow agents to spend more time
consulting with their customers and driving the sale," says Gross.

Gross shared his viewpoint on trends, assessment of Galileo
International in today's environment and much more in an interview with
Eyefortravel.com's Ritesh Gupta. Excerpts:

How do you assess the progress made by your company recently?

The future of travel belongs to those bold enough to create it. Cendant
Travel Distribution Services has seized the market opportunity head-on.
We've bolstered our content, making a total investment of $2.8 billion
in content and technology; strengthened our relationships and
negotiating power with suppliers and ramped up our technologies to build
an infrastructure so sturdy and resilient it can adapt to whatever the
future may bring. The end result is a vast inventory coupled with a
delivery so nimble and so powerful, it enables our traditional travel
agents and online travel agencies to sell travel in exciting new ways.

What new trends have you witnessed? What do you think is driving these
changes?

Package, cruise, tour and other complex travel has been increasing
significantly. Consumers are looking for richer, deeper information and
greater advice on choices. This is driven by an increasingly
knowledgeable buyer. The change is driven by a fundamental shift in
consumer values. Customers no longer want just a trip, they want a
great travel experience, whether it is business or leisure. Travel is
no longer seen as a luxury but as a "right" by today's affluent society
and holidays are becoming increasingly accessible to lower income
families. Essentially, consumers want memorable, custom-designed travel
experiences. And agents need the tools and technology that enable ease
of delivery.

How do you think Galileo International is in an advantageous position
today with its travel systems and services?

We've spent the past four years upgrading just about every element of
our product. We have market leading functionality and stability from
faring and shopping to cutting edge web services. We have the best
content in both air and hotel - blending over 60,000 GDS hotels with the
world's largest collection of wholesale and independent properties.
Thanks to our global presence in GDS, wholesale and consumer online
business lines, we deliver value to suppliers in many ways. That in
turn will help ensure we can continue to offer the best content to
travel agencies. We are applying our experience in the consumer online
world to the agency environment to improve their merchandising
capabilities and tap into the latest innovations.

In your viewpoint, how are the needs of your clients evolving? How are
you responding to these changes or new challenges?

The market is moving the role of agents back to that of the 'Trusted
Advisor.' In order to provide consultative customer service, agents
need to have access to the broadest and most exclusive content and the
technology to efficiently match it to customer needs. At Cendant we
have made the necessary investments and are leveraging our supplier
relationships to ensure our customers have just that. In the not too
distant future, we will roll out our market leading innovations such as
point of sale merchandizing, allowing among other things, agents to shop
by amenities, not just location, to provide clients with tailored travel
offerings. We provide agents with the product and marketing materials
to have the greatest breadth of choices and greatest advice on travel.
All of our content and productivity tools allow agents to spend more
time consulting with their customers and driving the sale.

From a technology perspective, how do you think moving fare products to
open architecture has shaped up?

The industry is starting to find the sweet spot. There is an ideal
blend of traditional TPF processing, which is still the most efficient
way to process huge quantities of data, with open architecture, which
allow flexibility and programming ease. For example, Galileo processes
5 billion transactions a month - all of which are partially or entirely
processed on open systems.

Stability is a key factor. If the system is down, no one makes money.
Our 360 Fares product, which blends traditional TPF with open
architecture is one of most stable high transaction systems on the
planet. It has not had one second of downtime in almost 18 months - not
scheduled, not unscheduled.

What do you think are challenges going forward?

As the needs of the consumer has changed from looking to book a 'just a
trip', to having the desire to create custom designed vacation
experiences, agents need to fully embrace all of the tools that are
currently available. Agents will need to interact with their customers
at a different level and provide enhanced customer service and added
value of the process. Agents will need to determine if they will become
specialists or generalists and create awareness to their value. Without
question, agents will need technology that allows them to easily find
amenities and local information to deliver a differentiated experience.
We see this as an integrated display of options based on individual
customer preferences.

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