Non-Air Commissions Proving a Valuable Source of Revenue for Travel Agencies as Bookings Slide

London – January 27, 2009: Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, has today revealed the results of a recent online poll among UK travel agents. The poll looked at non-air services, and in particular which services are selling well, and why, in the current economic downturn.

Overall results show that of all non-air services offered by leisure travel agents in the UK, hotel bookings are the most widely requested, followed by Cruise and Airport Transfers, and of all non-air business travel services offered by agents in the UK, hotel, rail and car rental bookings are the most widely requested.

Agents polled felt that the success of non-air sales was primarily driven by the level of commissions offered by such service providers which prove to be a valuable source of additional revenue as reported figures show booking levels down for 2008 versus 2007.

However, the poll suggested that technology could help to make non-air bookings even easier to sell, with features such as automated prompts, more integrated technology, and more sales skill training/better product knowledge being the top three on their wish-lists for 2009.

Of the agents polled:

Over 40% of leisure agents polled answered ‘Definitely’ to the question “Does knowledge of non air commission levels paid to your company influence your willingness to sell these services’. Just over 30% of business agents answered ‘Definitely’ to the same question.
Almost 50% of leisure agents polled stated that hotels were the best selling non air service, followed by Cruise at just over 40%, and airport transfers at 25%
Almost 50% of business agents polled stated that hotels were the best selling non air service, followed by rail at over 26%, and car rental at almost 13%
When asked which technology features agents would welcome to make the booking of non air services easier:
53% of leisure agents and 45.5% of business agents listed automatic prompts at the time of booking their top preference;
42.2% of leisure agents and 35.1% of business agents listed more integrated technology as second
33.7% of leisure agents listed more sales skills training, and 26% of business agents listed better product knowledge in third place

Una Bennett, Director of Marketing for Amadeus UK and Ireland said: “With agents reporting a decrease in bookings during 2008 we want to do as much as we can to help them sell non-air services, and in the process help them make as much extra money on the commission earned, as possible. This means not only working to deploy our latest booking platforms into the market as quickly as we can, but also looking at rolling out more bespoke product knowledge and sales training sessions so agents can provide accurate advice to their customers to close that sale. In line with this we have in the last few months provided access to online virtual classroom training courses to help agents boost their skills and knowledge, at their own pace and in their own time.”

She added, “New features introduced for our business travel customers in the last 12 months include the ability to adapt Amadeus Quality Control to prompt for ancillary service bookings. For the leisure sector, we have also deployed Activities & Entertainment, to automate the sale of added value travel products and services - both quick and easy ways for companies to boost ancillary sales and earn that all important additional revenue.”

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