By Ben Roseveare, Digital Services Director, Tigerbay
When I started at my first tour operator job in 1996, the company didn’t have a website. We had no concept of what an XML feed was. We did not know how to manage social media channels, nor did we even know what social media was. There was no dependency on Google pay-per-click and if someone mentioned the words ‘affiliate partnership’ together, that was clever talk for a mate who took you down to the pub!
Fast forward twenty years and the tour operator landscape has transformed beyond recognition. A transformation that has been driven by technological advance which in theory has made the operations and sales process a lot easier.
Many reading this will remember taking the leap of faith to go paper-free, or debating the ROI of resourcing a dedicated e-mail sales team to handle incoming emails as effectively as the phones. Some of us can probably pinpoint the precise date their website became more important than their brochure. These evolutionary steps have helped define successful business transformation and growth for those operators brave enough to take them. They are all under-pinned by technology.
But there is a flip side.
Technology advances can place a real burden on resource-stretched SME operators. Can a business justify the human resource needed to produce content that will optimise the website? Do we understand the best way to manage and load the CMS, or know what our API is really capable of? The list goes on, expanding as technology demands increase, which can lead to frustrations and sometimes failing system integration.
Do you feel excited or bogged-down by the technology demands of your business? I’ve personally run sales and marketing teams for multiple tour operators and have seen the good, the bad and the completely mad.
Over the course of my career I’ve faced and overcome numerous challenges. I’ve been forced to populate and map data to a CRM system that I know is going to fail. I’ve had no option but to soldier on with an enterprise back-office and reservations platform that no one supports anymore. On the other hand, I’ve re-negotiated value solutions with incumbent specialist digital marketing agencies on eye-watering monthly retainers and delivered ‘best in class’ sales team customer service and performance when we’ve had zero system visibility of customers.
So what is coming over the horizon in tour operator technology? I’ve recently become the new Digital Services Director at Tigerbay - and I’m determined to find out and to use these latest advancements in technology to make life easier for our customers.
Tigerbay provides a reservations and e-commerce platform that we’re proud of, designed by a team with a deep understanding of the needs of specialist tour operators. It is led by a team that also understands the digital demands of today, whether it is integrating reservations systems, delivering effective CMS solutions or developing front end websites. Or all three packaged together.
And, it seems so far we have it right. Specialist operators are increasingly looking for and taking advantage of our ‘complete solutions’. Perhaps it’s because they think it will make life easier? Perhaps because it provides the confidence that the technology will integrate and sync?
I firmly believe it’s because at Tigerbay we know that at the core of each of our customer’s DNA is the desire to sell holidays, and we know that it is our job to make that as easy, as fun and as profitable as possible.
If you would like to find out more about working with Tigerbay, or would like to see a demonstration of our complete solutions approach, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line
