Maximizing Revenue With AI Forecasting Group Passengers’ Willingness To Pay

Maximizing Revenue With AI: Forecasting Group Passengers’ Willingness To Pay

by with No Comment Blogs

At the end of 2022, long after the pandemic had been declared over in most of the world, airline revenue still hadn’t touched pre-covid levels. 

It wasn’t even close; airlines had made at least $100 million more in revenue in 2019.  

Largely, this shortfall has been attributed to airlines’ revenue optimization systems getting out of whack. The industry had no reliable historical data to make pricing decisions, given how everything was shut down for nearly two years. 

Making “educated guesses” has unfortunately become the norm when it comes to pricing decisions, and it shows, especially with group bookings. 

Airlines have witnessed record numbers of customers making inquiries for group bookings and backing out, saying the prices were too high. In other cases, revenue managers have been forced to make steep cuts to group booking fares to ensure the flight was filled. 

How AI can cause a turnaround in airline fortunes

Something is broken when it comes to airlines’ pricing methods for group bookings.

Group fares are notoriously hard to optimize; a ton of factors must be considered before arriving at a quote, and often, this takes an airline at least a week.

Within that period, 3 out of 4 customers lose interest in the airline. When the quote is finally ready, it ends up disappointing either the airline or group passenger because the fares are outdated by then. 

Consequently, the need of the hour is an AI-powered system that can forecast customer willingness to pay, taking into consideration all the relevant factors, such as:

  • Booking data: By analyzing data including the size of the group, the destination, flight load factor, customer buying history, and the time of year, AI algorithms can predict how much a group is willing to pay for their travel. 
  • External factors: Armed with tons of data, AI systems can even take into consideration external factors, like economic conditions, competition, and market trends.

Using such factors, an AI system can constantly test and optimize pricing strategies to maximize revenue, repricing seats in real-time based on passenger willingness to pay. The goal is to find optimal prices for each passenger while ensuring the aircraft is filled. 

Notably, dynamic pricing by forecasting customer willingness to pay with AI can improve group fares by at least 8 to 10 % over time and provide airlines with the following benefits. 

Reduce conflict between sales and revenue management teams

The sales and revenue management team may often be at crossroads because they have seemingly different goals. The former may look to increase the load factor at any cost, while the latter may be looking to onboard passengers for the maximum possible fares, leading to conflict between the sales and revenue management teams.

However, with intelligent pricing, both teams can rest assured that the group passengers are paying the best possible fares without the risk of them abandoning the booking. Consequently, the flight will be booked ahead of time, and the airline is assured of the fact that the maximum possible revenue has been generated from each group passenger.

Excellent customer experience

Typically, group quotes take up to a week to create, with the sales and revenue management teams engaged in a back-and-forth regarding the best fares. However, with real-time dynamic pricing that considers customers’ willingness to pay at that moment, the quote is ready in a matter of seconds, leading to a much higher chance of the customer accepting the offer from the airline. The customer is delighted with the quick turnaround time and seamless booking experience. 

Enforce airline policy effectively 

With an AI-based system in place to generate the prices for the group passengers, there is heightened transparency. No individual revenue manager can bypass airline policy with regard to discounts or other aspects of the booking, leading to a high degree of impartiality when it comes to making offers to potential customers.

Effectively target different market segments

Not all group passengers have the same level of urgency, budget, etc., to make a booking. If you have a system in place that can differentiate between customer segments and offer personalized quotes, you have the recipe for optimizing revenue across each of your customer segments.  

For instance, the system can recognize that a flight carrying mostly business travelers is in high demand during a particular season or time of day and alter prices accordingly to optimize revenue. 

Improve process efficiency

When seats are in high demand, airlines can leverage predictive technology to offer up the seats to groups who are most likely to pay the highest fare. Such predictions are made by the AI, considering the customers buying history, origin, destination, departure date, travel agency, type of travel, etc. This move leads to a reduction in the spoilage of seats, an increase in materialization rates, and a boost in revenue per passenger as well.

Conclusion 

GroupRM is a valuable tool for airlines looking to forecast group passengers’ willingness to pay and increase revenue. By analyzing customer data and utilizing predictive analytics, GroupRM allows airlines to make informed pricing decisions and create customized group travel quotes that appeal to their target audience.

Additionally, the platform’s ability to optimize capacity utilization and streamline the group booking process can lead to higher materialization rates and overall revenue growth for the airline. Overall, implementing GroupRM can be a strategic move for airlines looking to improve their group sales performance and drive business success. To see the solution in action, reach the GroupRM team for a demo. 

How Airlines Can Eliminate Duplicate Group Booking Requests

How Airlines Can Eliminate Duplicate Group Booking Requests

by with No Comment Blogs

As the pandemic’s influence on the airline industry fades in the background, a new situation has emerged.

With skyrocketing demand for flight tickets, airlines increasingly must deal with the scourge of duplicate bookings from travel agents, retail customers, and corporates.

Given that airlines lose an estimated 3% of group revenue from these duplicate bookings, they need to be aware of the following:

  • What constitutes a duplicate booking
  • How does a duplicate booking happen
  • What are the problems associated with duplicate bookings
  • How to tackle the issue without upsetting travel agents, retail, and corporate customers who are just looking for a bargain

What are duplicate bookings?

Everyone, including travel agencies, corporates, and groups of tourists, is looking for the cheapest possible fare. Nowadays, people who understand how airline pricing works have a trick up their sleeves, costing airlines millions of dollars in group booking revenue. Given that airline fares vary depending on the market demand, time of booking, and other factors, travel agencies, retail customers, and corporates look to game the system by making multiple reservations for the same itinerary. They hope that they will get an acceptable quote if they make enough bookings.

When the same person/ group ends up holding 2 or more confirmed reservations for the same itinerary, the airlines end up with multiple blocked but unpaid seats, a nightmare for revenue managers.

In several instances, the airline’s passenger service system (PSS) may notice the discrepancy and cancel the latest booking. However, this isn’t always the case, given that similar bookings could be made from different names or via different channels.

How airlines can detect duplicate group bookings in real-time and cancel them

Given the sheer volume of bookings made, airlines have an uphill task combating the issue of duplicate group bookings.

Attempting to manually verify each group booking can be incredibly taxing, not to mention highly ineffective. Many airlines now have an email that customers can reach out to when they make a duplicate booking.

But what if the travel agency or retail customer made the booking on purpose?

Even if customers voluntarily reach out, airlines’ group desks must comb through countless emails to identify and cancel duplicate reservations. Making matters worse, the airline now must find new passengers for the vacant seats.

This is where an automated group booking solution like GroupRM comes in.

It is worth mentioning that such a solution can weed out duplicate group booking requests by automatically checking all the bookings for similar email ids, origin and destination, number of passengers, travel date, date of raising requests, etc.

If a duplicate booking is suspected, it is flagged so that the group desk can verify if there is any discrepancy before canceling the extra reservation. Once duplicate group bookings have been identified, airlines have several options.

  • The airline can confirm the reservation that was made first.
  • Alternatively, if different travel agencies have booked seats for the same group of passengers, the airline can accept the booking from the travel agency that has the best relationship with them. This could mean that the selected travel agency has brought in the most revenue for the airline, they have been loyal to the airline for many years, or that they are willing to pay higher fares for priority when it comes to bookings.
  • There is also the possibility of allowing the travel agency or retail travelers to get the booking based on who accepts the quote from the airline first.

When airlines can identify duplicate group requests automatically, they can get a better grip on which routes and markets are most likely to be plagued with this issue.

Moreover, if the airline finds that a travel agency is repeatedly engaging in raising duplicate requests, they can restrict the agent’s access to their inventory. Case in point, a South Africa-based airline that used GroupRM safeguarded over 8000 seats annually from travel agents engaged in practices such as raising duplicate reservations.

Another great benefit is that airlines can maintain a high level of customer satisfaction by accurately identifying duplicate group booking requests. Doing the process manually can lead to genuine group customers getting snubbed, as airline group desk employees may mistakenly cancel group bookings from people with similar names, thinking it was a duplicate request.

Conclusion

Duplicate requests from group customers and travel agents are a significant pain point for airlines, especially when bookings are at an all-time high. Spending even a few hours manually dealing with duplicate requests can drain resources for the group desk, revenue management, or sales team. Instead, airlines can switch to an automated solution like GroupRM that can identify duplicate bookings with high accuracy by analyzing multiple factors in seconds.

Reach out to our team to see GroupRM in action.

Breaking The Myths Of Group Booking

Breaking The Myths Of Group Booking

by with No Comment Blogs

Breaking the myths of group booking

The recent trend has witnessed the growth of air travel at the rate of 6.2 % globally. Moreover be it business, school or leisure trip, travelers prefer to explore in groups. Group booking provides enormous opportunity for airlines to increase their revenue. Yet most of the airlines are hesitant to bring a reform in managing their group booking. Let’s look at some myths that is preventing airlines to recognize the significance of the group booking.

Groups are low yield

Group booking has always been considered as a way to fill up distressed inventory, but in reality the situation is divergent. On the contrary, airlines can set up multiple pricing strategies for different scenarios with various discounts and markups that will result to higher yield. Also group booking opens up opportunities for airlines to sell more ancillaries that adds up to its revenue. In fact, proper revenue management and demand forecasting helps airlines to generate revenue and grow profitably.

Groups have low retention

Group desk analysts always have a premonition of loosing clients. The reason for such low retention is not the low demands of a group, but unsatisfactory service of airlines. Requesters tend to loose patience and switch over to other vendors when there is long delay in responding to travel requests. Airlines have to upgrade themselves, give the user the option of negotiating for better fares. Quick response and enhanced customer service will make the groups return again and again.

Groups are difficult to serve

The battleground in the airline industry is moving away from the sky to technological cloud, it is an old adage that groups are difficult to serve. When earlier it took two to three days to respond a group request now it can be processed within few seconds. Gone are the days when airlines had to maintain a large group desk, and group desk managers had to closely work with revenue management team to announce a quote. In this technological era, there are endless possibilities of increasing the coordination between the group desk analysts and revenue management team and reducing the inconvenience of serving.

High demand flights don’t need groups

High demand flights will have a higher price range than normal flight. Usually in such flight travelers for whom it is important to fly will be ready to pay a price surge. The load factor of such flight will be less. When we have an opportunity to increase our load factor why not consider group booking as a way to increase the revenue! With analytics it has become all the more easier to predict the demands and quote fares to the group requester.

So why shy away from group booking? These myths have no relevance in todays world, where airlines have started to revamp their former ways of group booking with group revenue management solutions that automates the entire group booking process, making it quick and effective. There will always be excuses behind the mind, but recognizing the opportunity in business at the right time and taking the right step paves the way for success.

How-airlines-can-reduce-distribution-costs-and-win-more-corporate-customers-with-a-next-gen-direct-booking-system

How Airlines Can Reduce Distribution Costs And Win More Corporate Customers With A Next-Gen Direct Booking System

by with No Comment Blogs

Over the last few months, corporate travelers have increasingly been taking to the skies in numbers that aren’t that far from pre-pandemic highs. 

The Wall Street Journal notes a steady uptick in corporate travel transactions since early 2022, especially from small and medium-sized businesses. Notably, the demand for corporate travel shows no signs of slowing down, presenting an immense opportunity for airlines to capitalize on this highly lucrative customer segment.

Every airline executive knows that acquiring more corporate customers, providing them with a memorable, frictionless experience, and optimizing the revenue from each of these passengers is mission-critical, given the beating the sector took in the last two years of sustained lockdowns. 

But is the airline industry capable of making the most of this resurgence in the number of corporate customers?

Legacy corporate booking solutions—airlines’ one-way ticket to revenue leakage and poor customer experience 

Airlines are subjected to high Global Distribution System (GDS) fees when they make their inventory available to travel agents and corporates through the distribution network. 

Aside from that, the GDS only allows airlines to share prices and schedules, leaving them unable to upsell with ancillaries, such as travel insurance, checked bag, priority bag drop, lounge access, priority check-in, etc.  

It is further worth noting airlines reliant on the third-party distribution of tickets to corporate customers can’t offer dynamic ticket prices and packages based on the customers’ purchase history and personal information. 

Making matters worse, airlines that rely on agencies like Travel Management Companies (TMCs) to get clients must pay exorbitant commissions, bringing down the carriers’ revenue from business travelers. 

As a result of all this reliance on external parties to distribute their inventory, airlines have no control over the revenue from this crucial segment. 

Reimagining corporate booking with a next-gen direct distribution platform 

To overcome all the pitfalls of the traditional corporate booking system, airlines desperately need a direct distribution system that offers an end-to-end self-service portal for corporates to seamlessly book tickets across multiple channels by integrating with the airline’s passenger service system and corporate Human Resources (HR) software. 

Such a solution will drastically transform the corporate customer experience, given that the business travelers can get ancillaries, discounted tickets due to non-reliance on the GDS, and further ensure that all their company policies are followed—all in a single platform.

Crucially, airlines will be able to handle multiple corporate accounts with the solution and provide their customers with curated offers and travel packages, leading to higher retention rates. Another way airlines can utilize such a solution to bolster corporates’ favorable view of them is by offering loyalty programs, the ability to book tickets in multiple languages, multiple currency options, etc. 

With the platform in place, airlines can potentially save millions of dollars by distributing their content directly to their target audience instead of depending on the GDS or travel agents. Business travelers will also enjoy the convenience that a direct distribution solution offers; corporate staff can book tickets straight from the airline, get approval from their management, and issue the ticket directly or via a travel management company within seconds. 

Since it is a self-service platform that supports mobile and desktop, airlines will have an easy time onboarding more corporates. Also, airlines can delight customers by bundling and unbundling fares, setting up specialized cancellation policies, allowing them to create and manage PNR directly, and enabling them to reschedule as well.

In addition, airlines can draw up pricing agreements with companies or groups of companies that belong to the same customer segment. Upon finalizing the fare, customers can access the booking portal to purchase inventory at the negotiated discount prices directly. As a bonus, the corporate can maintain a direct relationship with the airline, leading to better deals. 

However, the biggest benefit is providing interactive reports to your customers that outline how their business travel program is progressing. Details include whether employees adhere to the company’s business travel policies, how much is being spent, what trips need to be approved, etc. 

Conclusion

As business travel demand soars, airlines need to immediately figure out a way to provide their corporate customers with a direct booking tool that is cost-effective, easy to use, and personalized. With a solution like AgencyDirect, airlines can offer customers unparalleled ease in managing travel policies, self-booking & ticketing across multiple platforms, and trip approval workflows. The airline can also rake in unprecedented revenue due to the increased ancillary sales, distribution cost reduction, and betterment of customer experience. To witness the solution in action, schedule a demo by emailing marketing@infinitisoftware.net

Who-should-control-the-group

Who Should Control The Group Sales For An Airline – Sales Or Revenue Management?

by with No Comment Blogs

Whenever a request comes in for a group booking, it is common to find sales and revenue management at loggerheads.  

Airlines generally handle group bookings manually, and in the process, confusion breaks out over whether the group’s accommodation on their preferred flight is in alignment with the airline’s revenue maximization efforts. 

Another conflict that arises is the discounts that can be given to a particular group. In this instance, the sales team looks to fill up the flight with substantial discounts, while revenue management might want to hold out for higher yield passengers.  

Making these decisions manually has made group booking a tedious process for both passengers and airlines, which means that airlines are missing out on a major opportunity to boost revenue.

What if there was a way to automate the entire process of group booking that ensured the flight was filled with high-value passengers? 

Also, what if there was a way for the sales team and revenue management to work together to adopt the best pricing strategy based on demand and the previous buying pattern of the passengers? 

How automating group booking can work wonders

Airlines can manage inventory effectively and fill their plane with the most valuable customers if they had access to a single, web-based interface for accepting and managing group requests, deciding the fare based on demand, and negotiating for providing customers with competitive pricing.  

Here are the benefits of having such a solution. 

Providing the right fares to the right groups

With the dynamic pricing capability that an automated group revenue management system provides, airlines can come up with optimal quotes in a matter of hours depending on group size, load factor, demand, nature of the trip, requested fare, etc. 

With the sales and revenue management teams in sync when it comes to policies that affect offers, the airline can also present travel agents and tour operators with personalized offers in real-time.

Making timely pricing decisions

Since customers have a lot of options in the market, they have immense leverage for negotiating fares. Airlines need to keep constant track of competitor rates and customer history to keep potential passengers from switching. 

When the process of pricing is automated, airlines can make optimized and timely decisions on everything from discounts to surge fees based on the season and sector. 

This leads to more customer retention because the long quoting times associated with manual processes inevitably lead to lost sales.  

Selling to the right group at the right time

Automation goes a long way in helping airlines prioritize which groups to cater to for maximizing revenue, especially when hundreds of group booking requests pour in. 

With the right tools, airlines can accelerate the group sales cycle, close negotiations much faster, and even boost customer spend with personalized pricing and product offers. 

Conclusion 

Increasingly, customers want better prices and more specialized offers with group bookings. Using an automated group revenue management tool, airlines can eliminate nearly all the conflict between the sales and revenue management teams and make smarter pricing decisions that fuel a faster recovery from the pandemic. This is because having a single source of data allows both sales and revenue management to collaborate in ways that will foster efficiency and better customer experience. 

Airline Plan with Three Layers at the Back - Blog Banner - Relevance Of O&D Bid Price-Based Revenue Management In Post-Covid Era

Relevance Of O&D Bid Price-Based Revenue Management In Post Covid Era

by with No Comment Blogs

It is no secret that before the pandemic, the airline sector was booming. Companies were constantly expanding their travel budgets, and airlines took full advantage of executives with deep pockets to turn in consistent profits. Further, tourists thronged various hot destinations around the world. In 2019 alone, some 1.5 billion tourist arrivals were recorded internationally, and this effectively meant that international tourism growth outpaced the global economy.

A huge driver of these profits was the fact that airlines had become masters at leveraging historical data to forecast demand to determine seat availability and price in a way that delivered optimal profits. 

But this all changed in the early months of 2020 when the covid pandemic prompted governments to shut their borders and set up numerous travel restrictions that brought the travel industry to a screeching halt. 

The non-viability of O&D bid price-based revenue management

As the pandemic took hold of the world, airlines found, to their dismay, that the O&D systems that had set them back by anywhere between $100,000 to $10, 000, 000, had ceased to be useful.

Border shutdowns, lockdowns, and curfews across the world were forcing passengers to take direct flights rather than connecting ones, meaning there was no fixed demand that the network airlines could take advantage of to set optimal prices for their inventory.

Consequently, airlines are losing their pricing power without their ability to accurately gauge passenger’s price sensitivity and willingness to pay.

Keeping up with the times

Given the volatile scenario of the aviation industry, airlines need to shift to revenue management systems that are flexible and offer the ability to make rapid decisions. The need of the hour is to find a cost-effective solution for optimizing flight routes based on demand and optimizing the pricing strategy based on traveler sentiment and paying capacity. 

It is however worth noting that to maximize revenue, focusing on retail customers and tourists is key. This is because many studies indicate that business travel will take longer to recover. Some estimates say 36 % of business travel may be permanently lost, largely due to arrangements, such as remote work. However, airlines need to make sure that they have enough seats set aside for business travelers on future flights when demand for corporate travel rises.

In the meantime, ancillaries are a great way to boost revenue. Specifically, providing ancillaries that people care about now, such as travel insurance, PCR tests, vaccinations on arrival, etc. will go a long way in filling flights with high-yield passengers. 

Bottom-line 

The promise of O&D bid price-based revenue management—boosting seat availability for high revenue connecting passengers while simultaneously preventing connecting passengers from displacing local passengers with higher yields—is unattainable, at least for the moment when historical data is unreliable. As a result, airlines need to look for simpler forecasting methods that do not eat away revenue the way O&D bid price-based revenue management systems do.  

Emphasis on retail passengers and tourists, and bringing in more ancillary revenue, must also be part of the solution to turn profitable on emerging from the pandemic.  

If you are looking for such cost-effective solutions that are guaranteed to bring your airline back on track, reach us at marketing@infinitisoftware.net 

Should-airlines-create-a-specialized

Should Airlines Create A Specialized Online Storefront For Government Travelers?

by with No Comment Blogs

A government employee frantically trying to book flight tickets for official business runs into a variety of issues.  

Firstly, he cannot book tickets directly from the website of the country’s national carrier. Picking another carrier is also out of the question due to government mandates that their employees must only use the national carrier. He must rely on GDS and travel agents, who have no incentive for providing discounted flights.

There is also the possibility that tickets would have been sold out. Moreover, dependance on travel agents goes against the efforts by airlines to bring down their distribution costs using initiatives, such as NDC.

If this were a one-off situation, it could have been easily fixed. But unfortunately, this chaos and inconvenience, coupled with high commissions, is a reality across the globe, and it affects countless employees, departments, and entire governments as well.  

Speaking of the government, they are also in a bind due to this situation given that there are all kinds of fraud and policy violations being committed with the discounts reserved exclusively for government employees.  

How is this mess to be untangled? When the issue is viewed in its entirety, it seems to be impossible to fix. But what if we told you that there is a straightforward solution? 

Infiniti’s GOM portal—a secure and hassle-free booking platform for government business travelers

 After intense brainstorming, we have come up with the perfect solution— custom online storefronts for flight booking that airlines can create to attract government employees and help them bypass travel agents and GDS.

For such a system the benefits are unparalleled. Here are a few of the benefits that users of the solution have experienced. 

  • The travel expense has come down drastically. 
  • What is more, the process of getting approval for the trip and securing tickets has become seamless.  
  • Besides, government departments have reported that policy compliance has gone up substantially.  
  • Notably, government employees can actively track the status of their bookings. 
  • There is also the option of making payments or raising an invoice directly to the government. Without the hassle of going through the reimbursement process, employees can invoice their government for the various business expenses they have incurred.
  • Given how each airline can assign specific teams to deal with government agencies, approvals for employee requests are done much faster. 
  • Advanced analytics also provides the agencies with detailed insights on employee habits and whether they are complying with department policy. 
  • Bypassing travel agents and GDS further ensures that the airline gets to boost its bottom line and that the passenger pays lower ticket costs.  
  • Airlines also can accurately monitor how well ticket sales are going and optimize revenue by leveraging this information. 

Conclusion

Infiniti’s GOM portal can make the difference between you saving money while catering to government employees and you missing out on major revenue gains due to commissions to travel agents. Besides, it is the surefire way to gain a customer base that consistently uses your service and is bankrolled by governments with infinite spending potential.

Reach us at marketing@infinitisoftware.net to learn more about how our custom GOM portal can benefit you. 

MICE-Automation

MICE Automation: A growing opportunity for Airlines

by with No Comment Blogs

“Even as everyone prophesied that the rise of digital would do away with face to face business, precisely the opposite is happening now. The value of in-person meetings are rising, and the need is only getting bigger and bigger, much to the delight of the travel industry.”

Just scroll down your LinkedIn feed, and be astounded by the endorsements of countless conferences happening around the world. Surprisingly, the more people are getting plugged-in through the world wide web, the more the hunger is to have face-to-face interaction. Knowledge and doing business are no more confined to a particular tribe. MICE (Meeting Incentive, Conference, Exhibition) give people from diverse geographical locations the opportunity to connect, share and learn. But for corporates, event managers, TMCs managing travel for such large events are complex and labor intensive.

The role of Airlines

MICE industry is booming! But MICE planners are struggling to find an efficient way to manage such large scale movements of people across geographies. Airlines can make things easier by providing a platform that enables MICE group booking. This allows airlines to attract event planners to their website directly and hence reduce distribution and servicing costs.

How can airlines make conference group booking a breeze?

Though MICE is a profitable segment, the conference group request is a challenging process for the airline’s group desk. This is because airlines follow a manual process which is operationally inefficient leading to high turnaround time and error prone. However, with technology airlines can overcome the hurdles faced by the group desk in their day-to-day operation.

Furthermore, the airlines can redefine their groups business by allowing less than ten passengers from every single origin to get access to group fares as long as the overall size of the group is above their group booking threshold.

The technology breakthrough

Airlines can fulfill conference group travel request effectively with a fully automated end-to-end solution. An airline group booking tool makes it easy for customers to raise travel request mentioning multiple sources and the destination. Once the system receives the request, it responds instantly with the ideal quote. This is possible as the system can automatically calculate the fare considering several pre-set conditions. Also, through a negotiation platform customers get an opportunity to negotiate group fares. Group bookings require timely reminders for payment and name list submission. Automatic follow-up increases the probability of conversion. Over and above for monitoring purpose, the system also keeps a record of all information and generates reports accordingly. For more understanding, let’s take a closer look at how technology can combat challenges.

Faster revenue accounting process

MICE booking involves multiple request ID generations for various PNRs. Details of their sector-wise revenue and payments received from time to time are recorded manually. A little alteration may result in a mismatch in the accounting process. A group booking tool generates a single request ID for all PNRs. This helps the reporting engine to auto capture the details and maintain accurate records of various financial transactions.

Gaining visibility and control

It is difficult for the airline’s group desk analysts to track the status of every MICE request and their resulting impact on the revenue. Group Desk analyst can get complete visibility on all transactions and easily identify violators. Airlines can now efficiently run reports to see the effectiveness of their group booking program.

Group Travel is growing exponentially, and airlines around the world are consistently trying to make group traffic management more efficient. A technology solution for groups provides automation and allows airlines to pursue newer markets and reduce cost. Worlds top airlines have already started tapping this lucrative segment. Is your airline ready to take the next big leap with MICE group booking?

Top-group-booking

Top group booking challenges faced by airlines

by with No Comment Blogs

Over the past few years, we have seen airlines making attempts to aggressively reduce their costs and increase operational efficiency while trying equally hard to increase their revenue. Hence there has been a rise of new revenue streams which airlines are focused on capitalizing. One of such emerged market opportunity is to serve group booking. Though the group booking phenomenon is continuously on the increase, airlines are still struggling for a hassle-free group booking tool or process. The reasons are many including the fact that the traditional approach tends to bog down in the complexities thrown up by the industry. Let’s glance at top challenges airlines are facing while realizing group booking

Operationally inefficient

Once the airline receives a group travel request, it involves many iterations to quote a fare. The airline’s group desk team needs to collate data, analyze the behavior and consolidate prices from pricing and revenue team. Due to the manual nature of how group request is handled, there is a long wait time for customers to receive relevant information causing dissatisfaction.

Complex communication channel

Group booking involves a lengthy thread of e-mail exchanges between the client and airlines. Also, to respond to a group request with a fare, the local sales team has to coordinate with group desk and revenue management teams. With these multiple layers of communication, there is a higher chance of misunderstanding and human error.

Group Pricing

Airlines group desk faces a tremendous challenge in quoting the RIGHT fare to the right group at the right time. So the airlines need to consider an array of factors before they can compute a group fare. When done manually this is time-consuming with a higher chance of error. Also, there is always a room for inappropriate forecasting.

Difficulty in adhering to terms and policies

Group fares come with terms and conditions. Different groups will have different cancellation, rescheduling and payment terms. It may be difficult for a manual system to ensure policy compliance and perform quality check accurately. This makes the airlines vulnerable to fraudulent and unethical behavior which could result in revenue and brand dilution.

A massive set of the workforce

For quoting a group fare, various teams are involved, and they spend a considerable amount of time on deciding the fares. Besides, some teams are required to do regular follow-ups, verification of documents and manual entry of the group details. This involves a considerable workforce and cost associated with it.

Groups are going forward

Today’s travelers expect information instantly, and any delay is unacceptable. The airline with quicker response time, better price wins the group contract. Also, an opportunity to negotiate on the fares leaves room for a higher chance of acceptance rate. However, with a manual system, these can never become a reality which inhibits a faster business conversion.

Driven by the demands of the industry, many premier airlines have already started automating their entire group revenue management process in their wisdom. Quick adoption of a highly intuitive and robust group booking tool is the only way forward!