Differentiation in Rates based on Nationality ... is an issue for Online Travel Portal / Systems

With Internet being easily accessible and increase in numbers of Travel Portals and Online Booking Engines, The Rates Difference / Parity of Hotels based on Nationality will soon be abolished. In coming years we might not see Taj Hotels having different rates or USD rates for Foreign Nationals and Lower rates for Indian Nationals; or Hotels in Malaysia having different rates for Middle East and Sub-Continent markets.

No Borders or Territory on Internet ??
Online means Global and accessible from everywhere. It is very difficult to draw borders on Internet and Online portal by asking Nationality for each country / nation and display their applicable rates. Portal and Engine powered by XML will be able to retrieve one response and with updated technology and user-friendliness, simple layout and quick booking will find “Nationality” option check as Difficult inclusions.

How to Control ???
It is not in hand of any online accepting international credit card to stop any foreign national buying Hotels from their portal despite of displaying available rates not applicable for foreign national then the country of origin of portal. In scenarios, where same rates are address to a region specific market such as Asian Market Rates will have India, Malaysia, Singapore and multiple country feature under Asia booking with same rates, it will be very difficult to generate booking response based on Nationality. And infect, in such case if a portal in India allows only Indian to book Hotels in Malaysia despite of having rates valid for entire Asian Market, the portal will be losing business coming online to them from Asian Market.

International / Online Rates
There can be only one solution to the mentioned problem and that will be one common rate as “Online Portal Rates or International Market Rates”.

The view within Industry is divided on the above subject, and being immerging issue; the above problem has different option and suggestions. We have encountered similar issue on our portal where one of our travel partner has generated an online reservation for his direct client in Delhi, turned up to be a Middle East Citizen. The hotel has debited us for the difference of Asian to Middle East Market Applicable Rates.

I will seek your reply and suggestions on my below queries / comments :
1) If the entire transaction would have been different, I mean if a Indian client had bought a Hotel on Middle East Market Rates (higher then Asian), than would the hotel have refunded them money on check out ???
2) How do we control reservation, if a foreign national working in India books his vacation through an Indian Travel Portal (having Indian credit card) ????
3) How do we control reservation of Indian Corporate booking their employee or consultant, who is working in India but is a Foreign national through their regular travel agent in India ???? Since, company has to make payments, they will book through their regular contracted travel agent only, than in such case who needs to pay the difference ???

Feel free to write back to me directly on rezlive@traveldesigner.in with Attn : Jaal Shah – Foreign National Issue in the subject.

Posted Online by,
Jaal K Shah, Managing Director Travel Designer India Pvt Ltd

Rezlive to integrate domestic hotels in reservation system

Ahmedabad based B2B online reservation system, Rezlive.com launched by Travel Designer India Pvt. Ltd. in September last year is planning to integrate domestic hotel content in their reservation system. The system currently has content of global hotels on its website. The company is currently in talks with major domestic hotel suppliers and will soon come up with this product for its registered agents. They are also in the process of integrating their gateway payments, which, according to Kalpesh Shah, Chairman and Joint Managing Director, Travel Designer India Pvt. Ltd., means that if an agent can give the floating deposit then the company gives them three times more credit. Also, agents can now make payment through credit cards on this portal.

“The agents who are on credit limit of the portal get some extra facilities like, they can load their own logo and print the voucher with their own company logo. This establishes confidentiality,” stated Shah. He further added, “Major players can also create sub quotes to corporates, which will be known only to these agents. They can take this extra amount as commission.” In order to facilitate regional wholesale agents and agents working on the sub-agent network; the portal offers a white-label product which can be beneficial not only to their sub-agents but also for their corporate and retail clients.

The company in a Joint Venture (JV) with Qtech Software Pvt. Ltd. has launched a full fledged IT Wing - ‘QRez,’ which will be handling all IT related requests and support. The online version is launched with Multilayer Hotel Reservation System and will be updated with other travel related services by end of this year to make it - one click travel planner. Rezlive.com has more that 40,000 hotels with real time availability. The system has been designed to display only available hotels to save agents time and facilitate instant transaction. The company is also looking forward to holding an ‘agent training seminar’ to educate and explain the features and facilities of the portal to its travel partners. Travel Designer India Pvt. Ltd. was set up in 1999 and has its offices in New Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Mauritius.

Reported by TravelBizMonitor.com on Monday, March 03, 2008, 18:00 Hrs [IST].

Changing Trends in Travel Bookings

There has been a major change reported in the pattern on Online Travel Bookings, Worldwide.

Experts are projecting over 60% of travel to be booked online by 2010.

Power of Technology
Seeking Information, Instant Confirmation, Online Payment and Browsing through Available Options have become essential for New Age Travelers.

The serve further extends its view on repeated customers on Online Travel Portal and travelers buying travel arrangements Online. It says that, 65% out 0f 100% transected online and bought travel related services before, returns back to any available travel source to buy their future or next travel online.

Between 1996 and 2006, the Indian outbound market expanded by nearly 10 percent annually, with the number of trips taken by Indian travellers growing from 3.5 million in 1996 to 8.3 million during that time.