8 Mistakes Online Travel Agencies Make and How to Avoid Them

The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors in the world. The established travel businesses are thriving and utilizing the maximum potential of the growing market.

For both small and large companies, the travel industry offers huge potential and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. To drive the business towards success, one only has to have the right perspective to capture the potential at the right time.

While travel websites are implementing new strategies and trying to adapt to new online booking trends, as a travel agent or tour operator, it is your responsibility to stay focused on attracting more business from your website. It is important to give them to access the best experience to draw more customers.

It is vital to recognize that the website is an appealing stand for your business and you need to keep an eye on it to avoid the awful visual and confusing website functionalities.

These factors are the common mistakes that travel businesses appear to miss and eventually end up paying a huge price. Therefore, the key to running a profitable travel agency is to solve these problems, schedule, and experiment, strategize, and set targets.

Not realizing the impact of technology on the travel business is why travel agencies are failing without travel tech. To overcome such mistakes we are listing below 8 essential principals that most travel agents either get wrong or don’t implement.
 

One of the main reasons why travel agencies are failing is not having an online presence. For every travel agency in today's digital era, having an online presence is essential.

An online presence means being active on social platforms as well as having a travel portal and a travel app to have access to more customers. 

Travelers these days largely rely on their mobile phones and different apps when planning their travel. Therefore, the travel agency needs to get a travel portal for their business.

It should also engage customers on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. 

TIPS: Building an online presence is crucial for the long term sustainability of travel agencies. Therefore, travel agencies that have not gone digital tend to fail and lose out on customers.

Each travel agency must have travel booking software to reach a wider audience all over the world. However, if the travel software is slow or has no advanced features, you may lose your customers to competitors. 

Hire a qualified travel portal development company to build a responsive travel website with key features for your business. Also, keep your customers engaged through posts and campaigns on social media. This would not only increase your brand visibility but also the customer base.
 

As a travel agent, you may be satisfied with the travel website application you have finalized, and it may look ideal for all your travel business requirements, but as a travel owner, you cannot tend to forget to consider the technology aspect. 

As new technology comes out every day and remains up to date in competition, you need to keep up to date with the latest technology and acquire software that supports this modern software.

TIPS: Nowadays, cloud-based technology is leading the industry. The cloud-based travel technology solution is the ideal package for the travel industry to solve major challenges.
 
When buying travel software solutions, not understanding the technical aspect can be a major mistake and this can be avoided by working hard to make the technology on which the software is designed and evaluating if it has any current and future scope in the market? This question is going to resolve most of the difficulties.

Due to the stiff competition, every travel business tries to attract customers with exclusive discounts and offers. Customer loyalty is hard to earn when customers have various options and bargains over the internet. 

Moreover, with easy access to information over the internet, travelers no longer depend on travel agents for their travel plans. The travel companies lose out on customers if they aren’t able to provide information that is not generic and is easily available on the internet.

TIPS: Customer loyalty can be earned by offering authentic and differentiated experiences that other travel agencies may not be providing. Offering personalized experiences that go beyond the expectations of customers would keep them coming back in the future. 

Build relationships with customers, understand their needs, like, and don't like to tailor a package. They wouldn't be able to decline or have to think twice about the package you're offering. Stay in touch with your customers even when they don't have travel plans. Inform them about the best deals to come.
 

Each client needs to receive extra support. In reality, customers appreciate the fact that their travel agent gives those packages or advice based on their past bookings. 

According to the figures, 65 percent of travelers choose to go back to travel agencies where the agent recognizes their previous bookings, and about 35 percent of travelers leave the travel website because of the wide variety of choices they have to choose from. 

The lack of personalization by a travel agent also results in the loss of customers to competitors.

TIPS: Give customers more personalized packages based on their preferences and past bookings. The travel website or app can add a feature that offers clients options based on their booking preferences and perceptions.

Where everybody is busy in a world, no one wants to experience travel bookings on a slow and complex website. Travel companies get their travel website developed by web developers or designers who provide the cheapest development cost. 

The effect is a web that is bad in design, difficult to navigate, and slow. There is a high possibility that when the client lands on a website, he might exit the website and jump onto another one.

Therefore, travel agencies that don’t have an online travel portal are very likely to lose out on customers and experience a downfall.
 
TIPS: The solution is to build an online travel portal for your travel agency to increase your customer base globally.

Keep the design of the website easy and appealing so that the customer’s mind is captivated by the design as well as being able to navigate within the website easily. 

Also, with various payment options and transparent pricing, the website should not ask people to access long forms and should be able to facilitate fast booking.
 

If you're overdriven by the phrase, "Customers like information," then it's a mistake. When it comes to the travel portal or the travel website, information must be informative, but not overloaded.

The website should be clean and attractive. It should be easy to navigate features, search filtration, and search for information for easy comparison.

TIPS: The developer you hired to design your travel portal may have designed a clean website at the initial level, but with the increase in your travel products your website may look like "a lot of instability". 

To get information cluttering, you must use the sub-menu and sort your travel products according to your priorities. Customers like information, but when it comes to viewing the information on the travel website, it is very important. 

Use content support icons and images, and you can also make your travel portal look interesting with sliders, categories, and drop-down buttons.

Customers often make their bookings and payments but have to wait for their bookings to be verified, which often results in the customer having to pay more because of the difference in rates. 

This occurs when real-time bookings are not provided by the travel website and API integrations are incomplete. In the future, consumers who have to go through the problem of waiting for confirmation could not want to make their booking on the same website.

TIPS: API / XML system is vital for travel websites to empower customers to access a large inventory of hotels, flights, etc. and to make their bookings in real-time.

As you know, in March 2018 Google switched to mobile-first indexing to rank websites and provide a better experience for their users. So it implies that your website should be responsive to mobile phones.  

However, it should go above simply being mobile responsive. Your website needs to be fully optimized for mobile to provide a great user experience. 

Travelers use mobile to book easily, especially for in-destination planning, and if your mobile site does not provide them with a great experience, 88 percent of them will switch to another that does.

TIPS: Almost every new client needs a mobile version of their website these days. After all, it is practically essential: one design for the BlackBerry, another for the iPhone, iPad, netbook, Kindle-and all screen resolutions must be compatible, too. 

Responsive web design is the methodology that implies that design and development should respond based on screen size, device, and alignment to the user's behavior and environment.
 

Perhaps you may need to expand your agency or plan a marketing strategy or update your profiles, but the truth is that the more time you spend focusing on your business, the less time you focus on it.

Customers want an agent committed to them, not thinking one moment about their package holiday and planning a marketing strategy the next.

How can you get this done? One way is through solutions such as Travelopro technology solutions.

Travelopro is a leading website design, travel portal development, and integration company with decades of experience in this field. 

We are proud partners of many global travel API providers, GDS providers and have delivered successful travel portals, travel software, and online booking systems to several OTAs clients across the globe.

If you want to develop your online travel portal and redesign or redevelop your existing online travel business address, please get in touch with us now.

Our travel portal designs maintain all the modern design updates and our developers are experienced enough to create a highly functional and easy-to-use travel website.

Tools such as those offered by Travelopro make it possible for you to grow your agency and serve your customer’s daily basis. We also make it possible for you to become a successful travel agent.