Advantage consortium launches tour operation
Advantage Travel Centres has launched a tour operation, Advantage Holidays, allowing all of its members to sell dynamic packages under the consortium’s ATOL.
As part of a six-figure investment in its distribution technology platform, Gateway, Advantage said it was a natural step to launch its own tour operator.
The new Gateway 2 platform means all 350 member agencies can now put beach, city, and other package holidays together for their clients.
Until now, only a selected number of members were able to do so under the Advantage umbrella.
"Our members were asking for it. Unless they had Flight Plus, they were seeing business walk out the door but they didn’t want the risk of having their own ATOL," said Advantage managing director Julia Lo Bue-Said.
The technology is currently being tested by selected members and is due to go officially live on May 1.
John Sullivan, Advantage head of leisure commercial, said Advantage Holidays would not take business away from its existing operator suppliers.
"This is incremental. This is not a threat to our operator partners," he said.
"This is something members have wanted to do for a long time. I don’t think there’s any operator out there who would be surprised about this. We’re not trying to be a TUI or a Thomas Cook. We’re simply offering another opportunity to our members."
He said Gateway 2 was also more intuitive and therefore easier for agents to use.
It was launched to members at the consortium’s annual conference, currently taking place on MSC Fantasia.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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