Travel as a business industry is one of the most burgeoning one, yet there is still so much left to do. As travel products start to saturate and differentiation between products become low, agents start looking or ways to make themselves look different and this gives birth to another cycle of innovation in the travel industry. During the software and IT boom, a lot of travel businesses adopted software and went online to not just get business locally but now reach out to the global travel business.

India has been no different. As the travel industry here has also seen phenomenal growth, advent of software companies as a supporting industry was only inevitable. Riding this software wave was the rise of the aggregators and the Online Travel Aggregators of the likes of Make my Trip, Travel Triangle, Yatra and many more travel portals that have cloned and mushroomed over the past 20 years or so.

Many Travel agents started out as passionate individuals who wanted to make a difference and not be like the money making agents they were standing against. But in the mad rush that became synonymous with the travel market in tourist hubs, somewhere that essence was fast being replaced by the more base instincts of survival against the cut-throat competition.

In this media-drenched, multitasking, always-on age, many of the travel agents have forgotten how to unplug and immerse themselves completely in the moment and remember their fist love - travel.

In North- East India, travel agents are MULTI-TASKING NINJAS! Travel agents of the North East India, especially in places like Sikkim and Arunachal always have to run for Permits early morning, find alternate routes when weather is adverse, talk to supporting service providers, co-ordinate with transporters and much more. All these are the behind-the scene works that are ubiquitous to the travel industry but are the things which the travelers are oblivious to. And after all this during the day, the little time left is spent on managing enquiries, following up with the customers.

Now imagine a travel agents who after a long and tiring day reaches home, his kids are fast asleep and his food is gone cold and suddenly his phone rings, there is a travel enquiry. What can he do? Most of the travel agents who do not have any software they are using will only be able to record the enquiry details and get back to the customer the next day, once in office.

This is a daily rut that most small and medium sized travel agents are stuck in. In many places, these situations are taken as an industry given. However the travel industry has evolved and there are many software solutions available today that can make life of travel agents easy.

Being travel agents or tour operators is both thrilling as well as challenging. We understand the pain taken behind making everything perfect. Sometimes, it can all be just too overwhelming. Why choose to be stuck in this endless daily rut when you can be smart right now? What if we told you there is a way to ease these situations?

We have brought technology to your rescue. A travel management software to help you manage enquiries, saving all your data in a secure place which you can access anytime from anywhere in the least amount of time and even create and customise an itinerary in an easy format!

TOURGENIE TRAVEL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

One of the toughest things to do is manage enquiries. When enquiries keep pouring in, they need to be constantly followed-up, and sometimes in the process, some fall through because you forgot about it, didn’t call back to check, or lost the data.

TMS has streamlined this process and made it simple to track and mark every booking, keeping you on top of your follow-ups.

Let’s get started. Follow the video tutorial to see how easily you can manage enquiries and also do much more: http://tiny.cc/a4mahz

After you use your travel agents login into the TourGenie software, follow the steps below to see how you can easily handle a query. What is great about this is that this software has no installations required and can start working for you as soon as you register.

1. To manually enter customer’s travel enquiries, which you receive through email, WhatsApp messages, walk-ins, or any other channel, click the envelope icon on the left side of the screen

2. Type in your customer details like the travel dates, number of people and contact details

3. Choose the enquiry source by clicking an option from the dropdown menu

4. To save any other additional details such as customer preferences, mention it in the “Any Additional Requirements” section

Once you click on save, a booking ID is automatically created against that enquiry and will be displayed on the dashboard for easy tracking.

If you are an enterprising plan user and you receive an enquiry for your package that is displayed on the TourGenie website, the enquiry will be automatically displayed on the dashboard.

Oh, another way for receiving an enquiry is when we receive a direct enquiry on the TourGenie website but we decide to pass it on to you instead because we know you will do a good job of it.

5. To follow up on an enquiry, simply click on the booking ID to open up the Enquiry page.

Choose from any of these 3 options provided here to send an itinerary to your customer.

The itinerary gets displayed here—you can add multiple packages too. You can even edit or delete a itinerary.

1. Type in your message to your customer here.
2. Finally, check the “send itinerary” and click send. By clicking on this box, the itinerary will be sent as a PDF attachment in the mail to your customer.
3. Once your message is delivered, a copy of your message will appear under CONVERSATION DETAILS. If your message includes an itinerary, an icon will appear. Click on the message to view the PDF.

Incase you want to just send a message to your customer and not work on the itinerary or anything else, then there is no need to check this box; just click send

Not just this, there is also a way to segregate your enquiries by status to help streamline your work even further. Here is how:

Once a booking is confirmed, click on CONFIRM, type in a relevant message, and click save. This will move into the Upcoming Bookings section, which will ultimately move to Ongoing Bookings once the travel dates of your customer kick in.

If a customer cancels a booking last minute due to unforeseen reasons, select CANCEL, type in a relevant message, and click save. This booking ID will no longer show on your enquiry dashboard and will be archived.

Then you have customers who ask a million questions and finally drop the “not interested” line at the end. Ughh! Well we have a button for such cases too. Select CLOSE, type in a relevant message, and click save. Again, this booking ID will no longer show on your enquiry dashboard and will be archived.

So if you are an individual Travel Agent, a Travel agency, when you are drowning in Enquiries and have no idea where to start or you are still stuck in your past bookings and don't have time for the next, don’t let go of the next enquiry! Get on TourGenie.

Our journey in creating this travel solution has been gratifying. It is now time for you to make the best decision of your life.