Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), during their annual convention in Srinagar has announced TAAI Connect – a digital empowerment initiative that supports travel agencies to enhance their capabilities. The small agency in small or remote part of India can have the same capabilities of a large agency in the most advanced part of the world. Air tickets or hotels, as a product being the same, no matter from whom it is sourced out, what matters is the immediate connect; convenience; choice and cost to a traveller.
The two road shows on TAAI Connect to Travel Agencies (TAAI & Non TAAI) at Mumbai on August 8 and Bengaluru on August 10 have reverberated new sounds that reflect eagerness and enthusiasm to try it out.
“We are introduced to frequent record-breaking success stories, on how the online marketing is capturing the attention of large and growing travellers. It is not just cost or promo related, but more convenience driven. A new buying-behaviour pattern, to which travellers get accustomed to, makes it difficult for them to step back on to manual modes,” said President of TAAI, Sunil Kumar R.
According to him, large selling online companies not yet making profits and losing out, not because they do not sell, but more because the cost of technology, its development and maintenance is huge and unsustainable. TAAI is addressing both these happenings. One must be upgraded to online capabilities and not spend all money on investment. To also benefit from the voluminous pricing due to TAAI Connect.
Kumar says that TAAI Connect revolutionizes the way; travel agencies can do business, grow capabilities and reach out farther than they can see. With many online agencies, the market environment will witness a new wave of an advanced empowerment.
While elaborating more on the initiative, Kumar further said: “Our tenet on TAAI Connect is clear. Digital empowerment will better qualify our stakeholders to dominate market places. The first statement we make, suggests the real challenge right now is to retain your existing customer; than open your agency for new customers. Agencies are consistently losing out their old customers and their newer generations.”
“Something had to be done – on an urgent basis. Thus came in TAAI Connect, to bring in a revolution in thought process. This vision brought us to interact with technology developers and we now have someone who understood our initiative and ready to evolve and design to customize TAAI Connect,” says Kumar.
