Starting an Online Travel Portal? Read this before doing anything.

An Online Travel Portal is a much needed aid now a day. Every travel agent wants to take his business online but they failed because the lake of knowledge. The percentage for failure in Online Travel Business is more than 90%

How to Start an Online Travel Portal

If you are planning to start an Online Travel Portal successfully read this article carefully before doing anything.  There are certain factors that need to be taken into consideration before starting anonline travel portal.

1. Analyze your requirement:

This is the common mistake everybody make in the process to take their travel business online. They don’t analyze their requirement properly. Mostly travel agents started online business as per their immediate requirement and they failed in the long run. Because once they started their portal they realized that the product they finalize or the requirement they decide are not enough for run their online travel business.

So the first thing you need to do is take a paper and pen and write down every requirement with your long term goal. For finalize your requirement keep following things in your mind.

• Target Audience (Direct Customer/ Travel Agents / Corporate etc.)
• Products (Flights, Hotels, Tours, Bus, Rail, Travel Insurance etc.)
• Feature and Functionality (What feature and functionality you will require in a travel portal)

2. Select the right product as per your requirement:

After finalize your requirement you need to decide what kind of product to need to make your travel business online. There are many modules in Travel Technology and you need to decide which module to want to take.

• B2B: Stands for Business to Business this model you will distribute your products among other businesses and they sell your services to the end customer. This is the most popular online business model among Travel Agents. For the complete B2B portal you will need budget of 5-10 Lacks which include cost of several API of suppliers.

• B2C:  Stands for Business to Customer. Through this type of portal, you will able to reach direct customer this is the second most popular model among travel agents. The budget required for this type of Travel Portal is same as B2B but you will need to invest good amount in marketing, SEO, SMO and burn money in cashback and other offers. The competition is very high in B2B as there are many big players in the market and you will require huge budget to stand up in the market.

• B2E: Stands for Business to Enterprises, is the newest model in the Indian travel market. Through this type of travel portal you will easily approach big corporate companies who have in-house Travel Desk or have policy where employee directly make his/her booking on Portal. B2E travel portal are completely designed for corporate and having facility of Employee Profile, Policy Management, Multi Level Approval System and many more. Since there are very less numbers of companies who provide this type of portal the cost for building such portals are very high and not affordable for small or medium level of travel agent.   

• B2B2B: Stands for “Business to Business to Business” it is also known as B2B Whitelable. In this type of portal you are actually using someone’s B2B portal with your own domain and branding to target your B2B agents. The development cost of this type of portal are very less and you can start this type of portal in just 10-20K Rs. Since it is not complete B2B portal you might not get all the control and functionality.

• B2B2C: Stands for“Business to Business to Customer” it is also known as B2C Whitelable. The only difference between B2B2B and B2B2C is through this type of portal you can target direct customer instead of Travel Agents.

3. Choosing the right Technology Partner:

After selecting the right Model or Portal as per your requirement you need to choose Technology Partner and this is the most important step because mostly travel agent has no idea about travel technology so they easily trust on technology provider and fall into the trap. There is a lot of travel technology provider who claimed to be the best in the market but in reality is they have nothing.

So if you have made any mistake while choosing your technology partner you will end up disappointed. Here I have listed some key points to

• Check the complete profile of the technology provider.
• Check his social presence and reviews on Google and other platform.
• Check the team size and capability of the technology provider by visiting their office.
• Take complete demo of product at least twice.
• Cross check all your requirements with product functionality whether it is fulfilled or not?
• Checkout the support capability and also check whether they have dedicated key account manager or not.
• Cross check Technology Provider’s review from your API Supplier.
• Discuss payment terms & AMC.

4. Finalize the deal with Technology Provider:

Before finalize any deal make sure you have;

• Analyze your requirement
• Selected the right product as per your requirement
• Choosing the right Technology Partner

No, you are not done here the final step is most important as you are going to finalize the deal with your Technology Provider make you have documented all these things to avoid any dispute in future.

• Make a purchase order and mention all the services and functionality in details.
• Mention payment structure and AMC in details.
• Sign a SLA (Service level agreement) you can take help of your legal consultant in this part.
• If you are going to make any huge investment in Technology please do sign escrow account agreement.

That’s it… now you are ready to start your online travel portal.

If you still have any doubts, question, and queries or need any help/consultancy you can contact us or write us at info@travelinsides.in. Do let me know in the comment box if you would like to read more about this topic.

If you find this article helpful do share with your tread friends.