Traveltek are set for a record-breaking year in 2023 as they launch Cruise Connect and invest heavily in the US market with a new country leader

  Traveltek, the Cruise connectivity and travel software experts are delighted to announce the appointment of Rebecca Esterhuizen to Senior Vice President North America. Having served with the business for 6 years and previously spearheaded growth for APAC, before relocating to Toronto in November.   Esterhuizen started her career at Flight Centre in the finance team, before moving to Traveltek and has progressed through the ranks to run the APAC region for the last 3 years, being instrumental in managing key partnerships including the Global flight Centre relationship and overseeing significant growth with the innovative business Ignite and other major players in the APAC market.   Traveltek is gearing up for a solid year of growth and innovation after an extremely successful 2022. In 2022 Traveltek won ‘Best Technology provider’ at the prestigious Travel Weekly Globe Awards in London and ‘Best Technology Team’ at the Travolution awards in London, 9 months later. Traveltek announced their rebrand at World Travel market before jetting to Phocuswright a week later to announce a new partnership with Sabre. Traveltek will power Sabre’s cruise solution when Sabre exits the Cruise market in October 2023. This product will be Traveltek’s new look Cruise Connect, a Graph QL Cruise API and Agent Connect product, a cruise desktop solution.   Commented on the recent successes and her new role, Esterhuizen said  “I’m delighted to have the opportunity to spearhead Traveltek’s growth in the largest global Cruise market. I’m excited to work with all our existing partners in the North America region and to continue our close relationship with Sabre. With our new products coming to the market in 2023, its certainly set to be an exciting year”   Over the last 20 years, Traveltek has developed technology which enables leisure travel companies to package together an extensive range of hotels, flights, cruises and ancillary travel services in one seamless transaction globally. Traveltek over the last 5 years has dominated the UK sector working with a large number of consortia and leading retail brands and they are now keen to continue that success in North America.  “We have seen significant success in the US market in the last 3 years through our partnerships with Jetblue, Hotelbeds, Incruises, and passport online to name a few. We are excited to partner with Sabre and having Rebecca in region to manage this growth is incredible for our customers with her experience and knowledge, I’m sure she will excel in this new role” commented Cressida Sergeant, Chief Commercial Officer at Traveltek.

  We are excited to announce that Virgin Voyages will be available for bookings on Traveltek’s iSell platform.   In this partnership, Traveltek customers using the iSell system will be able to access and book Virgin Voyages ‘Elegant Design + A Touch of Luxury’ - Offering a superyacht aesthetic with award-winning spaces.   Over the last 20 years, Traveltek has developed technology which enables leisure travel companies to package together an extensive range of hotels, flights, cruises, and ancillary travel services in one seamless transaction globally. Traveltek over the last 5 years has dominated the UK sector working with a large number of consortia and leading retail brands who are moving into selling cruise to new-to-cruise and those looking for a boutique hotel at sea. This latest development will also help customers in all global markets including the US market where Traveltek has seen significant success in the last 3 years with growth.

 

iSell customers will now be able to source their own rates from hotels & channel managers directly through this new relationship

  Fastpayhotels, the B2B accommodation supplier, announced today the launch of a new partnership with Traveltek. In this partnership, Traveltek customers using the iSell system will be able to access Fastpayhotels´ 40,000 direct dynamic rate accommodation contracts around the world.   Additionally, after much demand from existing customers, Traveltek and Fastpayhotels have also developed a way for iSell customers to negotiate, sign and manage their own rates and deals with hotels around the world using the Fastpayhotels - TravelTek connection called By Invitation Only (BIO).   ¨Having shed our focus on non-refundable rates over 3 years ago now, the business has been busy delivering a Next Generation tech platform so that travel agents can access dynamic rates in our hotels and vacation rentals in over 120 countries.¨ said Alex Gisbert, CEO of Fastpayhotels , ¨We are excited now also to be partnering with Traveltek to allow travel agents to use our By Invitation Only (BIO) business model to also sign their own deals with hotels with dynamic or static rates.”   Over the last 20 years, Traveltek has developed technology which enables leisure travel companies to package together an extensive range of hotels, flights, cruises and ancillary travel services in one seamless transaction globally. Traveltek over the last 5 years has dominated the UK sector working with a large number of consortia and leading retail brands who are all now asking for more choice with their hotel supply. This latest development will also help customers in all global markets including the US market where Traveltek has seen significant success in the last 3 years with growth.   ¨Traveltek has a solid history of tech innovation in the UK and more recently across the globe. This partnership with Fastpayhotels enables our customers to be able connect to most hotel chains in the world, with an cost effective business model often cheaper than doing it themselves. ¨ Said Mal Barritt, CEO of Traveltek. ¨Fastpayhotels has demonstrated the technical agility to bring global chains, channel managers, vacation rentals, content APIs and hotel confirmation numbers into one platform. This will be an exciting time for iSell customers as they look to ramp up their supply of dynamic rates and improve lates availability directly using By Invitation¨   This unique partnership will immediately bring connections such as Derbysoft, Dingus or Siteminder to iSell customers as well as allowing any iSell customers to be able to offer Fastpayhotels´ 40,000 own stock hotels including flexible, promotional and package rates.

  Traveltek's strategic partnership with Digital Travel Marketing Group (DTMG) to develop Web & App solutions for clients utilising its powerful Cruise packaging API has delivered some significant early wins in 2022. The teams have collaborated by rolling out a number of joint cruise projects online in Europe with leading Cruise agents in Denmark, Holland , Switzerland and Ireland.   Traveltek, the global leading provider of aggregated cruise content with its Cruise API product provides access to over 30,000 itineraries,  access to pricing, deck plans, images and brochure content in multiple languages & currencies . In addition, this content includes integrated live end-to-end booking journeys for 30+ cruise lines.   DTMG, a growth stage digital agency based in Liverpool, UK has harnessed the power of the traveltek api and delivered Cruise packaging websites, offering unique Cruise+Flight+Hotel flexi packages in Dutch, German , French, Danish & of English language websites for european clients.   Leading european online cruise agents Tui owned Cruisetour.ch based in Zurich , CaptainCruise.nl in Rotterdam , Krydstogteksperten.dk in Denmark & cruiseparadise.ie in Ireland are the latest rollouts with plenty more in the pipeline.   Tom Britton, Managing Director at Cruise Paradise said “ Working with Traveltek & DTMG was the ideal partnership to deliver our new look site. Traveltek has always been ahead of the curve providing bookable cruise content with euro pricing, but DTMG have taken the web design to the next level. I’m very happy with the new design and usability of the DTMG built site, who engaged professionally with us throughout the process and delivered on time.”   Cressida Sergeant, Chief Commercial Officer at Traveltek commented “As the post pandemic cruise bounce back kicks in across europe we are seeing more and more agents invest in their online presence, making sure its fits for purpose for the bounce back , combining the power of our market leading cruise api with the boutique digital agency skills of DTMG is delivering a really valuable proposition for our clients.”   Peter Whittle , CEO & Co-Founder of DTMG added “The DTMG partnership with Traveltek offers the best of all worlds for cruise agents, accessing to the most powerful cruise dynamic packaging platform available while offering the opportunity to provide a bespoke website & app proposition unique to their brand for their clients. It’s proving to be the solution of choice for a number of agents around europe and indeed worldwide.”  

  Traveltek’s Cruise API will enable over 30,000 integrated itineraries across all the major ocean and river cruise lines for Flight Centre Travel Group leisure (FLT) agents globally as part of a new agreement.   Traveltek and FLT have partnered in the APAC region for over 10 years and recently signed a new Global contract which will now see Traveltek power Cruise globally for the company’s leisure businesses in North America, the UK and South Africa as well as continuing to support the leisure businesses in Australia and New Zealand.  Flight Centre’s cruise agents will benefit from access to exclusive deals from 30 cruise lines around the world in a single aggregated Cruise API.   Signed in July 2021, Traveltek’s Cruise API will become available to additional markets in the coming months.   Traveltek’s Cruise API provides live access to over 30 cruise lines [repetitive with par 2?] that are available to book direct and content from a further list of smaller Cruise partners which is crucial to Flight Centre’s plans to globally grow cruise internationally as the market prepares to bounce back.     Traveltek’s, Chief Commercial Officer, Cressida Sergeant commented: “We are delighted to extend our long-standing partnership with such a well-established travel brand. It’s been a pleasure to work with the team in Australia and NZ and we look forward to supporting Flight Centre grow its Cruise business in other markets, especially North America, where we have recently seen real demand for Cruise technology. We continue to heavily invest in our Cruise API and technology and look forward to further success with our Flight Centre partnership.   -Ends-   NOTES TO THE EDITOR About Traveltek Traveltek is one of the world's leading travel technology providers. A pioneer in its field, the company has been delivering cutting-edge solutions to travel businesses for almost two decades. It is operating worldwide with offices located in the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Australia - with the head-office located in Glasgow (UK). The company mission is to connect the world through travel; by delivering unique technologies, extensive distribution capabilities, and sophisticated data insights. Traveltek's award-winning product suite includes; iSell – featuring dynamic packaging solutions including both cruise itineraries; iBos – back-office systems offering CRM, booking reports and documentation; travel API - connects to hundreds of leading travel suppliers; and data insights. We are continually innovating and developing our products to ensure we deliver high quality, software and tools for travel companies to remain cutting edge within a highly competitive marketplace. For more information, visit: www.traveltek.com www.linkedin.com/company/traveltek-ltd   MEDIA ENQUIRIES   Cressida Sergeant Chief Commercial Officer Ph: +44 (0) 1355 595 327 E-mail: [email protected]

Traveltek’s Cruise API will be available to 60,000 B2B travel buyers globally as part of Hotelbeds’ Beyond the Bed ancillary portfolio. Hotelbeds’ clients will benefit from access to exclusive deals from 30 cruise lines around the world. Beginning in September Traveltek’s Cruise API will become available to 60,000 B2B travel buyers around the globe via Hotelbeds’ Beyond the Bed portfolio, which also includes transfers, activities, theme parks, multi-day tours and car rental. Traveltek’s Cruise API provides access to over 30 cruise lines that are available to book direct. Javier Arévalo, Managing Director of the Beyond The Bed portfolio at Hotelbeds, commented: “As cruise ships are now beginning to sail again and many travellers are booking cruises for 2021, we felt it was essential to offer our 60,000 B2B travel buyers around the world access to this very important segment. After a careful review of the market we felt that Traveltek’s Cruise API offers the best and most exclusive range of cruise products available and that its cutting-edge technology suits the needs of our API partners.” Traveltek’s, Chief Executive Officer, Mal Barritt added: “We are delighted to partner with such a well-established and recognisable B2B travel brand. I know that our Cruise API will be able to meet the current and future needs of Hotelbeds 60,000 B2B travel buyers. Whilst the industry has been challenged hard, the recovery is slowly underway, and Hotelbeds is in a strong position to capitalise on this.”

We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Leanne Woolvine, to the role of Head of Product. Leanne joined Traveltek in 2013 and has held various positions throughout her time at Traveltek from Senior Business Analyst to Project Delivery Manager. Leanne has over 20 years of experience in the travel industry holding various roles including Branch Manager, Audit Manager and Ecommerce Project Manager with Co-operative Travel which will be invaluable within this position. Her experience spans both the eCommerce and retail aspects of the travel industry and Leanne has a wealth of knowledge on the Traveltek product portfolio. Leanne, during her time at Traveltek, has been pivotal in driving forward the Customer Success team. In recent months she has led our efforts on building out our RPA capabilities through our Traverse relationship and played a crucial role in shaping our data strategy. Leanne Woolvine, said, “I have been with Traveltek for over seven years, and I have enjoyed my time here and been able to be part of some exciting and first of its kind projects for the travel industry. I am both delighted and excited to be taking on this next challenge as Head of Product and have the opportunity to work with our customers on the planning and execution of Traveltek’s products, and particularly the product roadmap”. Cressida Sergeant, Chief Commercial Officer, said, “As part of Traveltek’s commitment to improving our service to customers, we have been reviewing our processes and structure around how we manage our product roadmap. Following extensive customer feedback, as an Exec Team, we decided this role needed to move within the commercial function of our business. This is a pivotal role, encouraging a customer-focused and transparent approach to our product delivery. I am delighted to have Leanne take this role forward and wish her all the best in this new endeavour”.

Traveltek has over 20 years experience of working in partnership with travel agents, tour operators, consortia, cruise specialists and airlines in providing them with the best travel technology solution for their business. Based on that experience, we have pulled together a guide that includes the top five items to consider when looking for a new technology solution.

1) Why are you looking to invest in a new travel technology solution?

• Is it to consolidate your current technology stack from multiple technology solutions into one?
• Is it to improve productivity and profitability?
• Is it for efficiency savings and to reduce resource-heavy tasks?
• Will you outsource all your technology or will you decide to take an API and do some of the build in-house, it’s worth discussing your options with your prospective technology partner.

2) Have you considered what connectivity you will require within your new technology solution? 

• Who are your key suppliers? Can your tech provider assist you with recommendations here as to who would be most suitable to help you achieve your business goals?
• What supplier types do you need to have connectivity with? Can you start small and build up this portfolio of suppliers? 
• What distribution capabilities are you looking for? For example, are you looking to sell B2B, multi-channel (B2B & B2C), also are you looking to distribute your own product market-wide?

3) What are the scalability capabilities of the technology provider?

• If you are planning to grow your business, you need to ensure the partner you choose will have the resource to support you through that journey? For example, are they a product-driven technology company? If yes, you should ask to see their roadmap of development.      
• It’s also worth looking at what reporting capabilities and tools the technology company has to help you grow and scale.

4) Budget & Approval Process

• When deciding on the budget for your project, this has to be weighed against the commercials. It should be scaled against the productivity, profitability, and efficiency gains that the project will deliver.
• Make sure you have buy-in from your senior management team with regards to your preferred option. This will then ensure a smoother rollout of the project.     
• It may be worth considering your investment in stages if you are a start-up, starting with crucial models and investing more in technology as you scale your business.

5) Market Legalities and Tax Requirements

• Something that is often overlooked, and should be discussed at the start of a project is any specific requirements around market legalities or specific market tax requirements that would be required. Also, are you looking to push any connectivity through to your finance system?

 Additional points to note….

• Ensure you secure client references
• Training approach
  • How simple is the system to use? What resources do they have to support you post-live? Will it be easy to train new members of staff, can the training be delivered online, or is it face-to-face?
• Workshops
  • Throughout the sales process, there should be workshops of key workflows for sales and admin teams to ensure the technology is adding value and improving efficiency.
• Does your technology partner have a partnership approach and understand the travel industry?

I never knew a free sausage roll would be so revolutionary for our business!

In June I took on the added role and responsibility of championing our people initiative at Traveltek . As a tech business our EI was lacking verses our IQ and AI.  In our business, we weren’t performing well in this area at all. Morale was low after the last very tough year in the world of travel. Amongst a number of initiatives, we implemented Perkbox and it’s been a game changer. From the moment that we rolled out Perkbox it had an impact to our team morale. The sales process was slick and informative.  I was old enough to be the sales person’s mother when we met on the zoom call, but I loved their teams energy for this product.  The follow up and service was brilliant. I’m slightly envious, rolling out a Travel system isn’t this easy (that’s our holy grail right there and we will achieve this!) I loved the self-serve materials we got to support the roll out of Perkbox in our business. Easy marketing material to get staff excited about the new benefit they would be receiving. The admin set up to work with this product is super easy to use. We updated staff in our fortnightly Traveltek company update from our culture squad, and communicated via slack this would be coming soon. We then encouraged staff to sign in and download the app. Everyone did. Every week our staff can enjoy a free Café Nero Coffee or a Greggs Sausage Roll (vegetarian also available as our COO Stuart always likes to remind me!)

Developers actually thanked me in the office for providing this service to them. I never knew people were so easy to please!

The choice of birthday box has also gone down a storm, I’ve had photos of birthday boxes sent to me, as staff get a choice of 7 options to choose from. I can see from the stats our adoption is high. I’ve heard the buzz from people, they like it! I can also see people using it to save money on digital shopping vouchers, tech upgrades and travel. In a year where pay rises in our industry, so badly hit by Covid are impossible this has helped.  Perkbox claim this benefit can save staff over £600 a year. At Traveltek one of our core values is Empathy and as part of Perkbox all staff get access to 4 free counselling sessions and medical support. During current times, never has this support been more needed. This extra service from our Perkbox membership has offered additional support for our staff. Personally I enjoyed my great deal on a Virgin Wine box and I saved on my cinema tickets last weekend. It is an easy to use system. Like all tech systems it takes some drive from myself and Victoria our office manager to remind staff and drive adoption but the morale boost has been clear to see. Thanks @Perkbox and look forward to seeing what enhancements you bring next, especially getting our global teams on board. If you lure of a free weekly sausage roll or working with a team who is driving the change in travel technology is of interest to you, then take a look at our careers page   Written by Cressida Sergeant

Traveltek’s Cruise API product is one of the most powerful and best in the global travel technology marketplace. With all major ocean, luxury, river and expedition cruise lines integrated. Our Cruise API product provides access to over 30,000 itineraries. Plus, access to pricing, deck plans, images and brochure content. In addition, the Cruise API product includes integrated live end-to-end booking journeys for 30+ cruise lines. Now let’s talk about how this product will lead to efficiency savings and increased sales. Recently, Travelrite purchased our Cruise API product as part of their upgrade to their cruise website, so let’s see what they had to say about the product’s effectiveness.

Firstly, who are Travelrite – Cruise Offers

Travelrite International is a family-owned business, and we have been operating for over 40 years in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. We specialise in both themed escorted group tours, including golf, gardening, food and music tours. Plus, we are experts in cruise holidays and are the leading sellers of Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Princess, P&O and Cunard cruises in Australia.

What were the factors in deciding you wanted to upgrade your website?

As our website was nine years old, we wanted to upgrade the website so it was mobile friendly and also, so it displayed multiple fares for each cabin category. We are finding that cruise lines were advertising special offers at different fare prices. We also wanted the website to have a new look with extra features.

You have been a customer of Traveltek’s for over nine years. What were the reasons that you decided to work with Traveltek for this specific technology project?

Traveltek is the leading technology provider of cruise search engines with direct API connections to the main cruise lines. As a result, they offered a unique solution for our new website, which displayed multiple fare codes for each cabin category in an easy to use format.

Since implementing Traveltek’s cruise API onto your new cruise website, what successes have you seen?

The key success has to be that we have seen an increase in productivity from our staff as they now spend less time on each booking, with no negative effect on the quality of customer service delivered.

What metrics have you utilised to demonstrate that Traveltek’s product has been delivering success for your business?

The main metrics to show success is sales and client feedback. Our sales have increased year on year. Our clients love the ease of booking and searching for cruises. Having live prices online saves our clients time and makes sure they find the lowest price. If you would like to know more about Traveltek’s Cruise API product or any of our products, please request a demo!

Second, Hayley West, who has been with the business for four years as one of our Account Managers, has been promoted to Head of Account Management and will take responsibility for the Account Management team. Sharp and West both joined Traveltek with extensive experience within the travel industry. With Sharp holding several senior commercial roles within Jetline Travel and Broadway Travel Group and West within sales, product and account management functions at cruise.co.uk and Tailor Made Travel. Hayley West added, ‘I am very pleased to be taking on the Head of Account Management role. Traveltek is a fast-paced and innovative place to work, so it is fantastic to have this new opportunity and continue my journey at Traveltek.’ Tracy Sharp said, ‘There is a real opportunity of growth for Traveltek within the EMEA market, so it is an excellent time to embark on this new role. With a key focus on new product development within Traveltek, I know that this role will be challenging and rewarding over the coming years. Plus, I am very lucky to be joining a very knowledgeable and skilled team making this new chapter in my career an exciting one.’ Cressida Sergeant, Chief Commercial Officer, said, ‘I am delighted to see Tracy and Hayley step up into their new roles. They are both huge customer advocates and have played significant roles in our customer service improvement over the last 18 months.  The wealth of industry experience and knowledge is so valuable to our customers, and both will  play vital roles in the continued growth and globalisation of Traveltek over the coming years.’

Travel at 60 is an established full-service online/offline travel agency established in 2018 that curates unique travel packages tailored to meet the dreams and needs of the over-60s. With a team of expert travel consultants based in Brisbane, they serve customers from across Australia and New Zealand. Travel at 60 tailor their packages promoting holidays outside of peak travel times as their audience are often more flexible with their travel dates, allowing them also to grab a good bargain! Since its inception, Travel at 60 has gone from strength to strength, however, to develop their business further, they acknowledged that they needed to streamline their travel technology platform to improve efficiency and provide an enhanced online customer journey. Travel at 60 has partnered with Traveltek to utilize its award-winning iSell platform along with iBos and CRM products. Another critical element was that Travel at 60 is expanding its Cruise offering and the Traveltek platform is one of the best in the market place in terms of its ability around dynamically packaging cruise. Wendy Harch, Chief Commercial Officer Travel at 60 said “The Traveltek team based here in Australia made it a breeze to roll out this new technology – even during such a tough operating environment over the last few months.  Alongside our full-service call centre, we are excited to now also be able to offer our clients online search and booking functionality for cruise, flights, hotels and more.” Rebecca Esterhuizen, Head of APAC, commented “We were very excited when Travel at 60 approached us last year about this project. They are a very dynamic company and have a strong presence within the online travel community in Australia and New Zealand. And the Traveltek solution that we have been able to provide has achieved the goals that Travel at 60 were looking for, which was to have a truly one-stop-shop technology platform. I wish them all the success for the future, and they are now best placed with efficient and effective technology to capture the market as it starts to return”.