It may be simpler to plan a trip using an online travel agency instead of organizing each planning aspect individually. On one website, you have the ability to reserve hotels, airfare, car rentals, and other essentials, and bundling everything can sometimes lead to reduced rates. After entering your desired destination, travel period, and other requirements, you will be presented with a variety of choices for each element of your journey.
Our top recommendations for online travel agencies are those that provide a wide selection of options from a multitude of airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, and other amenities. It is important to search for sites that offer reduced rates by bundling reservations for various components of your journey. Optimal sites will grant you lower prices if you book both flights and accommodation through their platform. Furthermore, optimum sites will furnish reviews from past customers who have booked through their service.
BEST OVERALL – Booking.com
The Booking.com website boasts an easy-to-use interface that begins with a hotel search using your preferred destination and dates. It provides a comprehensive list of filters, including price range and distance from the city center, to refine your results and find the optimal accommodation. Additionally, the site allows you to search for specific hotels or explore curated options sorted by location, property type, or unique topics like the finest Michelin-starred hotel restaurants or the top destinations for vegan travelers. The website’s flights, car rental, and other features are similarly user-friendly.
Best Online Travel Agencies for 2023
BEST BUDGET – Skyscanner
By utilizing an aggregator website such as Skyscanner, one can discover discounted deals on flights, accommodations, and car rentals. This website utilizes a metasearch engine to compare prices from all online travel agencies in addition to the airline, hotel, or car rental company being researched. Searches can be conducted with predetermined dates, the ability to compare prices across an entire month, or by selecting the “Cheapest Month” option. The search engine also offers the option to narrow results down by selecting nearby airports or non-stop flights exclusively. When searching for accommodations, you can select between properties that offer free cancellation, those with a cleanliness rating of 4.5/5 or higher, or exclusively 3-or 4-star hotels. Additionally, while searching for car rentals, there is an option to choose a “return car to a different location.”
After discovering the most favorable rate, you can select the link in order to proceed to the external website and make your reservation. If you’re in a sudden mood for a trip, the Search Everywhere option on the main page provides a roster of budget-friendly flight offers for both domestic and international places, starting with your departure airport.
BEST PRICE PREDICTOR – Hopper
Hopper is a mobile application that is accessible on both iOS and Android devices. It aims to assist travelers in reducing their airfare expenses by utilizing historical data and their own algorithm to anticipate the least expensive times to fly. By specifying your desired destination and travel dates, Hopper will supply you with a color-coded pricing schedule indicating the most probable ticket costs, with green representing the least expensive, followed by yellow, orange, and red, which represents the most expensive. Hopper will also advise you on whether to make a purchase now or wait, or you may choose to watch a trip and receive notifications on the most opportune moment to buy. The application has also been extended to provide hotel and car rental cost forecasts.
Since its beginning in 2009, Hopper has introduced several new options such as freezing prices for a limited period- an additional paid feature, along with exclusive discounts for its app users. While the app can be downloaded for free, users might use it as a research tool before booking directly with the airline or hotel. The company boasts a 95% accuracy rate in predicting flight fares for up to a year in advance.
MOST INNOVATIVE – Kiwi.com
Kiwi is a great option for people who want to visit multiple cities and save money, as well as those who prefer a combination of planes, trains, and cars for transportation. It is a metasearch engine that searches and combines itineraries from different airlines, regardless of whether or not they have a codeshare agreement. Additionally, it takes into account various airports, even if your arrival airport is not the same as your departure airport, and provides booking options for both specific and general dates up to 60 nights.
Making several bookings for a single trip may be more convenient for certain individuals compared to doing it manually multiple times. However, it is important to take note that in order to benefit from rebooking and refund protections in case of reservation changes or cancellations, one must participate in the Kiwi Guarantee program. To easily plan your itinerary, Kiwi’s Nomad feature enables you to input your desired destinations and intended duration of stay for an assortment of affordable travel plans to be reviewed.
BEST FOR ECO-CONSCIOUS – Kind Traveler
In 2022, Kind Traveler, an online travel agency that specializes in hotel bookings, unveiled plans to expand its selection of eco-friendly and socially responsible hotels. Additionally, they will offer opportunities for voluntourism and make charity donations. They added that customers can enjoy perks such as waived resort fees or a welcome amenity.
By making a minimum donation of $10 per night to a local charitable organization, you can benefit from exclusive hotel rates and benefits offered by Kind Traveler hotels. For instance, if you stay at the Six Senses Laamu in the Maldives and help Manta Trust with your contribution, you may enjoy a reduced nightly rate of up to $33 and additional perks such as a food and beverage credit, and participation in an Earth Lab or Alchemy Bar workshop. Manta Trust is dedicated to safeguarding the island’s vulnerable population of reef mantas through coastal research projects.
You can choose from over 140 hotels in locations such as the Hawaiian Islands, Bozeman in Montana, and the Maldives. The charities that benefit from this offer include organizations that focus on wildlife, human rights, arts, education, and environmental preservation.
BEST FOR SOCIAL IMPACT – I Like Local
Consider checking out I Like Local if you’re looking for an online travel agency that has a booking platform aimed at sending money spent by travelers directly to the local communities they plan to visit. Their website offers a wide range of travel experiences in countries like Indonesia, Kenya, and Cambodia. These experiences span homestays, farmstays, wellness activities, and culturally immersive programs such as cooking and cycling tours and weaving classes.
In order to look for an experience, you can either choose from the options provided in the drop-down menu such as travel dates and categories of experiences or opt for viewing a worldwide map and clicking on a country to explore experiences offered there.
In 2014, the platform was launched and now it has expanded to have 4,000 local hosts in almost 20 countries. As a social impact entity, all the booking fees are given to the local hosts. Up until now, I Like Local has had 16,000 bookings made by travelers.
Travel Agency Software: Choosing Tools for Booking, Tour Building, Accounting, and Marketing
For many years, individuals used to plan their vacations by going to a room filled with numerous maps and brochures. They were welcomed by an agent who would offer them a cup of coffee and initiate a conversation about their budget and preferred activities. As online travel agencies gradually took over brick-and-mortar stores in 2005, tech-savvy travelers had to adapt and learn how to reserve their trips on their personal computers.
In contemporary times, relying solely on a physical agency appears outdated since modern agents have modernized their methods and gone digital. However, implementing sophisticated booking engines with complex search and pricing algorithms, or allocating a substantial budget towards back-end systems, are indicators of established enterprises. If interested, you can refer to our specialized article or video to gain knowledge on the functioning of automated back-end processes.
However, small business owners continue to depend on readily available software. In this discussion, we will explore the ways in which travel agencies can utilize existing technology to enhance their operations, streamline processes, and tailor their services to meet individual client needs.
If you’re wondering about the position of a travel agency in the travel distribution flow, take a look at the two infographics we made for airline management and hotel distribution. Fundamentally, a travel agency serves as a point of contact for (typically leisure) travelers, aiding them in selecting and coordinating their trips. This encompasses reservations for flights and accommodations, transportation, recreational activities, sightseeing excursions, and so forth.
What software do travel agents use?
A travel agent’s regular responsibilities often comprise arranging schedules, designing tour programs, offering consultation services, reserving activities, negotiating with vendors, crafting customized tours, and locating affordable fares for clients. However, these tasks need not be completed manually or utilizing Excel spreadsheets, as there are specific online solutions available, categorized into four types.
- Travel booking software,
- Tour and itinerary builders,
- Accounting software, and
- CRM and marketing software.
It is important to mention that this division is not absolute because certain products include virtually all of the functions described above.
Nevertheless, travel agents often resort to utilizing multiple tools as extra functionalities might not be as extensive as those offered by specialized tools.
Travel booking software
Booking flights, hotels, and other travel products has become effortless and convenient for most travelers today. With the availability of price comparison websites that offer the best rates in seconds, along with predictive tools and chatbots that can handle the entire booking process, human agents have lost their appeal for many as they rely on the same websites that clients can use comfortably.
By utilizing a particular travel booking system, one can not only streamline their daily booking operations, but also gain entry to the backend. Through this system, individuals are able to link their reservations to accounting services, acquire reports, produce invoices, handle markups, and more. Typical attributes of booking software for small and medium-sized enterprises are inclusive of:
- booking engine to b?ok flights , hotels, cars, activities, and more in one place;
- booking management,
- agency commission management,
- payment gateways to make and accept online payments, and
- reporting.
While selecting a provider for a booking system, take into account the amount of travel API integrations with suppliers such as global distribution systems (GDSs), bed banks, tours and attractions (T&A), among others. You can gain deeper insights into the workings of GDSs by watching our video.
Availability of a wide range of inventory gives you more opportunities to better meet your customer needs. Also, pay attention to a particular system’s focus: Some target travel agents, while others primarily cater to tour operators. In any case, it always makes sense to benefit from a free trial option and test if the platform suits your business.
Tour and itinerary building software
The task of creating tours is an incredibly time-consuming process for travel agencies as it involves booking, strategizing, organizing, and determining costs while taking into account the most in-demand, economical, or distinctive options for each destination. However, software has been developed to simplify this task. Generally, a tour builder software includes:
- drag-and-drop interface;
- access to detailed content from hotels, restaurants, city guides, etc.;
- photo libraries;
- tour templates, and
- exporting itineraries into PDF and other convenient formats.
Typically, tour operators are responsible for designing tours. Therefore, you may want to refer to our article that exclusively discusses tour operator software. Additionally, travel consultants, destination management companies, and host travel agencies can benefit from itinerary-building tools that simplify their tasks.
Accounting software
: The majority of reservation tools listed above offer financial management capabilities specifically designed for travel agencies. Nevertheless, every company that engages in sales-related activities requires a more advanced accounting system. Certain crucial features should be included such as:
- invoicing,
- tracking and scheduling payments,
- monitoring expenses and income,
- bank reconciliation,
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance, and
- financial analytics and reporting.
CRM systems
What sets travel customer relationship management apart from other industries’ CRMs? Is it possible to employ the conventional solutions offered by Zoho, HubSpot, or Salesforce? Each industry possesses unique marketing features which demand targeted tools. Therefore, it is crucial to seek out these specific capabilities when selecting a travel CRM system:
- lead distribution among agents,
- travel-specific customer categories,
- support for travel marketing channels (booking websites, TripAdvisor, etc.),
- automated departure and arrival notifications, and
- customized dashboards.
Start thinking of automation and your own systems
The travel agency market faces intense rivalry with Booking Holdings and Expedia on the verge of monopolizing the industry by catering to most travelers through exceptional service and limitless marketing potential.
Smaller niche agencies can still flourish by accessing the finest deals or providing distinct travel products not offered by industry giants. To accomplish this, it is vital to gain command over the systems and adjust them to suit your value proposition. This is seldom feasible with ready-made tools. Advanced commission management cannot be set up, the method of working with meta-search engines cannot be personalized, and your inventory is significantly limited if you do not obtain it directly from suppliers.
