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818.889.4547 www.ccrainternational.com |
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Jim Day
Chief Operating Officer
Mai MeyaartVice President & Managing Director, Supplier Strategies
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Patti Free
Vice President
Global Membership Relations
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Benet Henderson
Director, Supplier Strategies
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Jeanette Dvorak
Marketing Services Manager
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Rob Kunz
Advertising Coordinator
For questions or comments
please Supplier Strategies |
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CCRA Check-IN
March Issue
In
This Issue: |
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CCRA Booking Portal Buzz - All About Inventory
CCRA International now has hotel partners in 144 countries. Participating hotels span more than 600 additional cities compared to 2006, with hotels in over 4,000 cities total. The inventory of CCRA rates now available to agents via the online GDS booking systems or through the CCRA booking portal increased over 15% since 2006. CCRA partners include the most well renowned international chains from economy to luxury. In particular, luxury hotel offerings have grown, with more than 80 five-star and over 1,400 four-star hotels now enrolled. "High hotel occupancy in major destinations has driven our need to expand the inventory available to our members," said Dic Marxen, President and CEO of CCRA International. "Last year, CCRA introduced a year-round RFP program, which is unique in the travel industry. Hotels working to meet deadlines for a traditional RFP season won't miss out, and we are able to introduce more properties throughout this year." Each CCRA partner hotel receives the benefit of coming highly recommended to the CCRA travel agents based on lower rates, plus added services for clients including last room availability, block space availability and walk policy guarantees. Visibility and access on the CCRA booking portal is becoming a more valuable program participation asset, as the portal adoption grows in its second year.grows in popularity. Read on for details about loading your hotel rates to ensure booking success. |
In February, CCRA International announced major growth in its 2007 hotel partnerships with more than 2,600 new hotels added to the Program. CCRA's travel agency community has taken notice, and we are pleased to use this marketplace advantage to attract even more agents to the CCRA booking portal. During this year's Wave season, CCRA advertised to the cruise community agents at CLIA, CruiseShoppe, and Vacation.com all about our hotel coverage in port cities worldwide. To our new partners in 2007, welcome aboard, and we look forward to marketing your hotels.
Top CCRA travel agents search their GDS everyday for CCRA rate codes. To reap the maximum sales benefit of your program participation, the most basic step your hotel can do is assure that your rates are loaded and up to date, so agents can find them. To assist you in securing the best GDS booking results, here are reminder tips for your GDS rate loading:
1) Staff training has a great impact. The more information sharing with Sales and Reservations staff, the better. For GDS Instructions to share with staff, click here. (PDF file format). 2) If you are a BAR participating company, the recommended description to use in the GDS for your CCRA rate is "CCRA Best Available Rate" 3) Don't neglect to use the Block Space offering that is very popular with agents. Notify reservations staff upon closing the GDS (sold-out status) that "CCRA Block Space is in effect." 24/7 Quality Assurance |
Top Industry Leader Perspective from IT Group President Don Gould
Q: How does today’s travel agent professional harness the power of the Web? Don: Changes in Internet travel booking were predicted to be the demise of the retail agent – but in fact, Internet developments have changed the industry for the good. The availability of so much information allows agents to specialize, and provide even more value to clients.
Q: Why has the IT Group selected the CCRA booking option for its members? Don: The CCRA consolidated booking portal, really is the only game in town. Other providers of hotel programs may offer a booking tool, however, it is still tied to the GDS system. The CCRA tool is stand-alone. Agents can access this one portal, and shop for rate options and more inventory. This is a long time coming, and I admire the perseverance it has taken to develop. With expanded rate options, in particular with pre-paid net rates, the value of hotel transactions increases for travel agents. Hotels are becoming as valuable as a tour package, and even approaching the commission levels seen in cruise bookings. Agents are starting to see that, and they are making the hotel booking a more vital part of their business. This is positive growth potential for hotels. Q: What impact can new booking tools have on hotel sales in the agency market? Don: I’ve observed a great deal of change over the years. The Internet makes booking processes both easier, and more complex. I am not sure how many vendors understand that in the travel retail environment, the number of transactions that most individual travel agents will handle is not high. The travel agent can develop proficiency in only so many systems and booking formats. The best development for all would be a uniform process for all types of booking. In the tour operator side, this is available through VAX. For hotel sales, the CCRA tool now offers this efficiency. CCRA gives agents the ability to adopt one simple process to access a ton of inventory in one place. This is an exciting prospect. Q: Should agents present direct booking access from their website? Don: Agents who try to offer clients a direct booking option are not providing a customer service touch. Why go into that area when the big players like Travelocity have already invested so much there? A better way for agents to attract clients in the online environment is to always offer value, such as knowledge, specialty interests, or access to specials. Q: Can travel agents successfully compete with online agencies? Don: The value proposition offered by online agencies is different than that of a live agent, and will continue to be so. I heard a radio ad for Travelocity, and they now offer an 800 phone number. They recognize that people contact is still required for consumer transactions. There will never be a complete replacement of travel agent services. Competing with the online agencies is a factor, but the online alternative must compete with retail agents too. The retail agent services are not going away. Q: How can an individual hotel increase travel agent bookings? Don: Hotels need to be of the mindset to pursue the travel agent market share. They should recognize the value of providing a prepaid net rate model, and providing easy access to the prepaid net rate. The net rate enables the travel agent to be paid for the service they provide, bypassing the GDS booking fees. A growing percentage of agents are using net rates, and use will increase as education increases. This change will happen. It is in the interest of the hotels to support the growing net rate program. Q: Comments on future of hotel business within the agency market? Don: I see an untapped area of business growth for hotels and the retail travel agent segment. Agents are just not taking full advantage yet of the opportunity that is there now. Agents are still wary of payment limitations they have experienced in the hotel commission model, prior to the prepaid net rate model. Agents need to gain confidence in the potential available. Education is taking place in the industry, with the leadership of organizations such as CCRA. CCRA looks to be the lead company committed to developing the net rate inventory. Other companies may be coming around, but are still primarily marketing package-to-package offers, not individual hotel nights. That’s what makes CCRA unique and what holds a lot of promise – providing rate options in one place. |
Travel agents use the Internet the way any other business does – to record, gather and deliver information efficiently. Just as our customers can research before they buy, so can agents. The agent, however, has established procedures to best serve their special audience segment. New options on the Internet improve the travel agents’ abilities to reach beyond the GDS system. The IT Group provides access on our consortia website to the CCRA booking engine where more than just the GDS rates are presented. A large reason why the travel agents come to our website is to register for the CCRA booking portal. 
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 Data supplied by ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation), for moreinformation visit www.arccorp.com. To contact the reporter who wrote this article, e-mail Michael Milligan at mmilligan@travelweekly.com. |
Top CCRA International recently participated at four annual WESTA (Western Society of Travel Agents) conferences in California, Oregon, and Washington. Each of these events drew an estimated 100-150 WESTA members.
Special thanks to all of the generous Prize Drawing sponsors whose gift certificates helped make the CCRA booth a success. On-Site announcements and CCRA's table top display featured the following trade show prizes.
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The conference environment is a strong opportunity for our team to communicate the CCRA booking advantages through GDS rates and the CCRA booking portal. Live event trainings are always high-impact, as the travel agent community truly enjoys their annual membership networking. Nancy Freigher, a seasoned booking portal trainer, conducted demos for various agency groups. Nancy also presented the very crowd pleasing Prize Drawings at each event.
Top Among the marketing opportunities offered by CCRA is monthly Travel Agent Specials, which are FAM rate offers, which the agents love. The Travel Agent Specials are advertised as a link at the top of the weekly eBlast. Every week, this link is the most clicked on link by far among any other CCRA or advertiser link. What is a Travel Agent Special? What's the Appeal? Advertising Value
We encourage you to take a closer look at the Travel Agent Special opportunity not only because it is an effective sales tool, but because by offering these Specials we keep our travel agents highly interested in opening the eBlast Specials each week. It's a win-win, for the agents, for your hotel, and for the ongoing successful impact of CCRA's email marketing vehicles. For details, contact a Supplier Strategies Director to discuss a great package to fit your promotional needs. |
Top The New Year began with a redesigned format for CCRA's weekly eBlast Specials. We wanted to craft an eBlast that delivers the special offers, plus a bit of unique content to keep the agents engaged. Our opt-in database of more than 20,000 travel agent members demonstrates consistently high open rates for the eBlast specials, but it is an ongoing challenge to stand out among the volume of email marketing today. To keep the agents' interest peaked, we added more interactive content including Travel Trivia Quiz questions and a weekly ePoll. Following are the results of our ePoll survey questions so far, providing potentially helpful, and sometimes just entertaining travel agent opinions.
We asked: What is the #1 attribute you look for in a booking portal? We asked: Have the new 2007 U.S. Passport rules impacted your clients? We asked: What has been your experience with Net Rates bookings? NOTE: The statistics here do not represent a complete survey of the CCRA membership, only feedback from agents who replied to an informal opinion poll.
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We asked: In business travel, what amenity do your clients look for the most?
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* Favorite hotel ever stayed in: The Adlon, Berlin Germany Marketing Opportunities | CCRAtravel.com | CCRAinternational.com | ReservationCenter.net |
