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Remote working for travel agency

• It existed long before Covid-19 forced companies to send their
employees to work from home and to teleconference on Zoom. The
ideal image of “remote” work is to jobs and careers that can be
performed from anywhere, especially a secluded cabin in the woods
or bungalow on the beach with a mojito and a breeze. Employees in
the travel industry often already work in their dream destination, but
they can easily still complete their work remotely from any
destination now. The travel industry is in a unique position during
these unprecedented times to leverage remote work as it is more
widely accepted by today’s professionals now. 
Remote working images
1. Slack:

• Slack provides an easy-to-use chat/channel communication tool that can keep

everyone connected with a user-friendly interface.
• It can integrate with other products such as G Suite, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud,
and more. Fun Slack bots boost morale by giving birthday reminders and team
reports. 
• It is hard to imagine a remote team that is communicating without using Slack.
• Even its tagline, “Where work happens”, speaks about its indispensability in project
management.
• Slack is present in both mobile and web versions, allowing its users to collaborate
and coordinate from wherever they are.
• It’s affordable price and practical features make it a great communication choice for
many remote software development teams.
Slack images
2. Zoom:

• Zoom is a video conferencing tool that is exceptionally lightweight

and integrates directly into Google Calendar.
• Even though it does have options for messaging, Zoom is mostly
known for its high-quality video calling.
• With a free plan, you can get 40 minutes’ worth of conference time.
And with a pro plan, you are entitled to much more, including webinar
hosting features, which can be great for your online marketing efforts.
• One of the features that users find most useful is video recordings. You
can use these recordings to create educational videos or document
common procedures. 
Zoom images
G Suite

• This is a given, but utilizing the full suite of tools that Google offers is

a must. Through video conferencing, chat, and their wide collection of
productivity apps, businesses can collaborate no matter where they’re
located ensuring streamlined, reliable access.
Asana

• Worried about employees staying on task? Using tools similar to 

Asana can help you and your employees stay focused and productive
with a virtual to-do list, letting team members know when it’s their
time to review a project, or keeping employees on track for tasks due
that day.
15Five

• Continuous performance management solutions like 15Five are extremely helpful when

it comes to facilitating effective feedback and regular check-ins between employees and
managers. These elements are crucial for maintaining an engaged and motivated team,
 and helps team members feel acknowledged for their hard work.
• Plus, routine check-ins with your team members can help managers gauge how they’re
feeling, identify challenges, and keep employees focused throughout the year.
• Keeping in close contact with your employees and maintaining high levels of
collaboration are two key areas to focus on when working remotely. But these dynamics
can quickly be disrupted when transitioning from regular, in-person office hours to
distributed locations. Luckily, these five platforms  can be implemented quickly to help
your team make an easy shift into remote work without sacrificing the quality—or
quantity—of work.
Digital transformation strategies for travel
agency
1. Personalization as a crucial element of your travel business

• Personalizing packages and offers based on customer preferences becomes a piece

of cake with the innovative technologies like big data and cloud computing. At the
same time, personalization is a synonym for success. For instance, micro travels that
offer less hectic itineraries and are focused on a particular interest are a perfect
personalization example. By means of deploying big data that assists in providing
valuable insights into the travellers’ habits (e.g., favourite destinations, airline
preferences, snack choice), travel companies now can significantly boost the overall
level of their customized offers. 
• On the other hand, mobile apps send out personalized emails to engage travellers
and maintain them informed with the latest trends in the travel industry.
Personalization is expected to play an even more crucial role in the travel industry in
future as delivering relevant information and content for bettering user’s experience
becomes a focal point of the digital transformation strategy.
2. Cognitive Computing is not a science fiction anymore!

• Describing travel preferences about your dream getaway and getting detailed
recommendations tailored on the basis of your past travel behaviour is not a
crazy fantasy from your favourite movie! We are getting to the point when a
computer would book your entire package including airline tickets, hotel
accommodation, entirely based on your profile features and past experiences.
• Cognitive Computing, a break-through self-learning system that works via
voice recognition, data mining and natural language processing to replicate a
human brain, is highly likely to makes these steps possible in the nearest
future. Still hard to believe? Just ask Siri about the weather conditions in your
town, and you’ll realize that we already have a precursor of cognitive
computing next us!
3. Global mobile presence

• As the Travel Flash Report by Criteo informs, over 1/3 of the world’s population use a
mobile device to book a hotel room. Free mobile connectivity is a must for many
users, both Wi-Fi and 4G. Internet connections are offered now in most hotels,
restaurants and airports. The technology goes even further: some chains are already
offering their clients devices throughout their hotel stay as a courtesy. Thus,
the Casual Hoteles chain offers the Mobile Pack service, which includes a device with
Wi-Fi connection, portable battery, and selfie stick, free to customers who book
directly on their website.
•
Mobile connectivity turns into a rigid requirement rather than a luxury element.
Customers expect seamless mobile experience when they travel, from planning
through the travel itself, during their stay in a chosen accommodation to the post-
travel special offers.
4. AI, Chatbots and IoT integration

• Today, the tons of information are provided via 

AI-powered applications and technology, so that the guests could access the
information at any time, from any device. Even more, they get access to the voice-
activated chat bots to open the curtains, set the alarm, or order meals, without ever
talking to a live person. For example, Marriott has been using AI-powered chat bots
at over 5,000 hotels to do things like make reservation changes, check on account
balances or redemption vouchers.
• Since numerous devices get connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), it makes sense
that the travel industry would begin to leverage that data to improve the customer
experience. The more they know about their guests, the better they can satisfy their
needs. If the IoT data reports that a customer has visited their resort every year for
the last couple of years, it can automatically send a message proactively asking the
guest if they’d like to make another booking this year.
5. Focus on data

• Data is a true protagonist of today’s digital transformation. Travel companies capture and
store massive amounts of data. During every step of the travel journey they collect data such
as customer data, flight paths, transactions. The rewards of data use include an ability to
make more informed decisions, learn about customers and competitors, improve the
customer experience and increase revenues.
• When used effectively, this information can reveal which services customers use most and
which are the least popular ones.At the same time, to maximise financial results, hotels need
to know how to sell the right product to the right customer and at the right moment. As for
the internal data, such as past occupancy rates, room revenue and current bookings, it can be
combined with external data (e.g., information about local events, flights and school holidays)
in order to more accurately predict and anticipate demand.
• As a consequence, hotels will manage prices and room rates in a more efficient way,
increasing them at times of high demand, in order to maximise the revenue that is generated.
6. Reputation

• The fact that guests can book instantly also means they can share
their opinions instantly via Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor... That’s
why technology has pushed hotels and restaurants to focus even
more on providing quality customer service. Whoever wants a superb
review, needs to take care of the level of experiences they render to a
customer. While the ultimate goal is to deliver a better customer
experience, it is vital to understand that you need to deliver the
“right” customer experience to the “right” people.
7. Virtual Reality

• Whether it’s a hotel property or a tourist destination, guests can take a look without even leaving
their living room via virtual reality. The goal is to offer a preview of what guests will experience. This
isn’t being done on a widespread scale yet, but some major operators are offering guests the chance
to experience at least a snippet of their travel experience—offering a great option to get an 
incredible pre-experience for those planning a visit to a faraway destination.
• To illustrate, Navitaire, an Amadeus company, is creating a travel search and booking tool allowing
potential travelers to visit a destination, select an airplane seat, and examine rental cars — and then
pay for the entire trip — all within the virtual reality space.
• Due to digital transformation strategy and other business transformations, travelers, as well as
people working in the industry, could notice remarkable and positive changes that forever alter how
people manage their trip-related needs driving digital transformation in the travel industry. It’s
more than clear that the tourism companies that do not undergo a digital transformation process will
lose competitive edge and become obsolete.
• The time has come to embrace the changes and adopt the cutting-edge technologies. For a better
more connected world. Here. Today. Now. Your company can change the world!
Monitoring tool : EmailAnalytics

• First up, there’s our own EmailAnalytics (#biased, I know, but hear me out
😃). It’s unique from all the other tools in this list because it offers email
activity tracking, which isn’t available with any of the other tools.
• And with email being the primary source of communication for remote
workers, it’s a fantastic way to measure productivity.
• EmailAnalytics visualizes your team’s email activity, like how many emails
they’re sending and receiving, their average email response times, and even
their busiest times and days of the week.
• With this information, you can easily see how busy your employees truly
are, and how quickly they’re communicating with clients, leads, customers,
vendors, and each other.
Productive tool : Global Distribution System (GDS)

• A global distribution system (GDS) is a computerised network system

owned or operated by a company that enables transactions between
travel industry service providers, mainly airlines, hotels, car rental
companies, and travel agencies. The GDS mainly uses real-time
inventory (e.g. number of hotel rooms available, number of flight
seats available, or number of cars available) from the service
providers. Travel agencies traditionally relied on GDS for services,
products and rates in order to provide travel-related services to the
end consumers. Thus, a GDS can link services, rates and bookings
consolidating products and services across all three travel sectors: i.e.,
airline reservations, hotel reservations, car rentals.
Key security concerns for travel agency
• For companies, one of the biggest challenges of managing a remote
workforce  is creating a secure digital environment, especially when
the company doesn’t control all aspects of the physical environment.
Most employees use their own internet, which makes them
vulnerable for everything, and that’s what these tools need to be
secure, with the right password control and two-factor
authentication.
•  You need a good password manager, identity provider, and tools like
GoToMeeting, Rescue, and LastPass to give you peace of mind.