Whenever the travel industry opens up, your profits may come in slower than anticipated even after international borders open up completely. In this blog, we set out to investigate appropriate solutions that can support travel agents, tour operators, SMEs and corporate travel management companies in their journey towards growth and stability for 2021 and beyond.
When it comes to finding solutions for human resources, accounting, sales and other administrative red tapes, travel business owners have the additional burden of training their employees from scratch. Some may even hire outside help using a piecemeal approach to help with the most time-consuming tasks. However, comprehensive task delegation is still at a very nascent stage within the travel business community. Using a quality one-stop solution for your back-office work is ideal because outsourcing in the tourism industry allows travel businesses to focus on activities that are more impactful for growth. Instead of forcing your existing employees to train outside of their existing scope of work, it is much more cost-effective - and easier - to hire an offshore professional team. This also means that your existing in-house employees are less burdened and more likely to contribute to growth-oriented activities.
Comprehensive task delegation or outsourcing is becoming a more common tool for cutting costs as more businesses learn to balance quality and price. Small-scale business travel outsourcing is when any size business uses the human resources of another company to support repetitive non-core business processes and, in many cases, complete remote work.
By the end of this article, we will go through a breakdown of travel operations and how outsourcing will help overcome challenges that you might face in your daily processes. We will cover some of the most required travel back-office functions that can help streamline travel business operations and improve profits for businesses in the travel industry. You will be able to identify which areas you need help with - and how to get that help!
There are bottlenecks in every travel agency that act as a barrier to smooth operational flow. Back-office work in the travel industry includes complex hotel contract entries, preparing tariff sheets, time-consuming rate updations, creating tour packages and tour data entries among other tedious but critical tasks.
Each of these hurdles to the successful completion of a process is critical to the success of your agency or tour operation. Of course, as a travel business owner or manager, you would want to ensure that these administrative jobs are handled correctly at every stage. Partnering up with a support specialist allows you to outsource an entire department with standardised activities for efficient and professional completion of the tasks in the following areas.
Your customers need quick redressal to their queries, complaints and concerns. Slower responses to potential customers lead to a change in brand loyalty - meaning that customers will not look elsewhere for the same services you are providing. A delayed response can harm your business reputation. Partnering up with a back-office specialist will let you address consumer concerns quickly and professionally. As a result, travel companies can provide their consumers with the best support services at a cost-effective rate.
Travel management companies often face challenges in maintaining and managing their finances and accounts. Time and again, travel agencies have to deliver accurate financial reports by correctly processing travel accounting systems - just like any other business. Outsourcing these functions to back-office support partners will give you access to a professional trained staff.
While credit cards are the favoured payment method in the US travel sector, things are not so straightforward elsewhere in the world. Preference for customer and supplier payment methods vary significantly across most of Europe, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Preferred payment options range from digital wallets to transfers to mobile and more. To sell in more than one region, you must handle a variety of payment methods - a task that an offshore team can handle on your behalf at a very affordable rate.
Travel agencies, tour operators and others have been experimenting with outsourcing recruitment activities and the results are in favour. In addition to an offshore team handling the delegated recruitment, travel-related businesses also benefit from access to the vast database of potential hires. Furthermore, an offshore back-office team can also help you build a culture of diversity and inclusive professionalism.
Delegating essential duties to strangers seven seas away might be intimidating, but can be productive and profitable once you take the time to set-up your accounting processes and specify what training your offshore team will require in order to meet your needs. With a properly planned hiring process, you can ensure that you have the right people on your team. Once you go through the process of selecting, on-boarding and training an offshore team, you can sit back and enjoy the benefits - or start planning for the next stage of growth!
Outsourcing allows you to hire experts who might not be available in your area. The most qualified teams are no longer restricted to your geographical location. In addition, the idea of delegation to a team overseas helps you with cost and time as the 24/7/365 support gets the work done even after your last employee clocks off - giving you a head start for the next day.
Every business aims to increase revenue and lower costs. Businesses can hire more people at a lower cost due to diminished overheads on electricity, water, infrastructure etc. When you outsource travel business duties, you can delegate more secondary tasks despite actually making fewer hires. Outsourcing providers often have the necessary software to deliver the most efficient service—tools and systems required to complete your work. Depending on your agreement and setup, you may no longer need to invest in new tools to ensure that your back-office work proceeds smoothly.
Outsourcing allows businesses to grow their operations internationally. If you desire to break into a global market, partnering with an overseas agent will help you expand rapidly into newer markets. For example, you might want to expand your travel agency to another location. Partnering up with travel outsourcing specialists will make it easier to expand as they are already present in the local market obtaining exposure on a much larger scale because of cheaper initial costs. Without having to pay for your local staff airfare and relocation packages to work in your offices abroad, you can have a ready-to-use office at your disposal with all the cutting edge technology and staff - giving you a competitive edge in the international market as well.
A few travel companies may choose to be lone rangers in the initial phases of their company lifecycle. Although, as the company progresses, there is a need to outsource tasks for a few benefits as stated above. At Technomine Travel Solutions, we aim to help our travel industry partners that need services such as financial support, back-office, out-of-hours functions and web chat support. Ours is a flexible model - so we can help travel companies rebuild and focus on growing their business. In this blog, we explored a few tasks that a back-office support business can help you with and reasons why to outsource it to them. In the past, clients who have partnered with us have successfully increased their business reach, gained a competitive edge and managed to hire people with great capabilities, knowledge and skills. If you are looking for more information on how Technomine Travel Solutions can support your business growth as a travel-related business, you can reach out to our Sales Director Chris at chris@technominetravelsolutions.co.uk
Technomine Travel Solutions are here to help and grow your business in these unprecedented times. We can support your business continuity, improve efficiency, reduce overheads and make your business more agile for the challenges ahead.
Technomine Travel Solutions are here to help and grow your business in these unprecedented times. We can support your business continuity, improve efficiency, reduce overheads and make your business more agile for the challenges ahead.
