TravelManager :: Travel Manager

June 25, 2010 – 9:00 am

Documents such as PDF’s or Word Docs can be attached to any email template created in TravelManager. This feature allows for operators to attach terms and conditions, marketing information about their fleet and company or any type of document that would be of value to send with an email template.

As will all features of the email templates the user can override the default options to remove or add additional attachments on per charter / private hire basis.

Some recommended templates would include:

1) Terms & Conditions

2) Company History & Fleet Profile

3) How to Charter/Hire a Motorcoach?

4) What additional fees/services are included and not included?

5) Etc.

Setup requires administrator level access under MyAccount -> Admin -> Email Templates.

Regards,

Eamonn

May 31, 2010 – 9:00 am

In Saturday’s rollout we’ve updated the email templates section with “Cancellation Penalties” so now you can have automated calculations of penalties for a cancelled charter. A TravelManager Administrator can now edit fees based on the date of cancellation ranging from 30 days to 24hrs before the booked service.

ancellation Fees as a percentage over time

The software automatically calculates the difference between the date of cancellation and the date of service to generate the correct penalty (if applicable). This facilitates a consistent company policy and reduces potential lost revenue.

New Merge fields have been added to help display the charges in your cancellation email template so the customer can clearly see the fees that maybe applied to a late cancellation.

New Merge Fields for Email Templates

Tip: It’s recommended to include your cancellation policy in any terms and conditions document that you may attach to emails to your customer.

Regards,

Eamonn

May 11, 2010 – 11:13 am

Today we started the work required to translate the entire travelmanager application into multiple languages.

The process is as follows:

“Tag” all screens within the application in English
Enter those “Tags” into the translations engine
Provide End User accounts to the translation engine for those users interested in assisting in the translation process
End Users map the English “Tags” into their language (over 50 to choose from)
Once all “Tags” have been mapped into a language create the translated dictionary file
Roll translation dictionary to beta and test
Roll translation dictionary to live.

This has taken some months to get to this position with a considerable amount of work occurring in the background. We now have all the systems in place to make it happen and are started at 1. above.

regards

TravelManager Support

April 5, 2010 – 3:02 pm

If you’re looking to drive more business in 2010, then Email and Search Marketing is what you should be looking at. In 2009 these two media we’re the top performing adverting channels and this trend is liable to increase with marketers increasing their investments in digital marketing channels.

Strongest performing advertising channels

Source: MarketingProfs

*If you’re operating a Bus or Motorcoach company, your website should be a top priority for 2010 to drive brand awareness and revenue.

Regards,

Eamonn

eamonn Trying to Market your Business? Email and Search Performed Best in 2009

February 3, 2010 – 3:18 pm

Here’s a quick introduction video to EasyBusRental.com from Charles de Gaspe Beaubien the President

**EasyBusRental.com is in Beta at the moment but will be officially released at UMA Motorcoach Expo 2010.

January 27, 2010 – 7:00 pm

Internet technology is changing the world and today Apple release their vision of the future of Internet access. The iPad Tablet is the starting point for an even more connected customer, but do your staff have the right tools?

TravelManager Lauching App for iPad Tablet

If you’re not online, you don’t exist to a growing customer base. This customer wants to work with you on their terms, when and where they want. Is your business ready for the future?

**TravelManager are leading the group travel and transport industry, why don’t you join us when we launch next month at UMA in Las Vegas.

Regards,

eamonn Is your Business ready for the future?

Eamonn Hughes

January 21, 2010 – 7:04 pm

Here’s an interview video of Charles de Gaspe Beaubien the President of EasyBusRental at the ABA Marketplace 2010 talking about the new website and the technology which is powered by TravelManager.

He talks about TravelManager as a platform for the Group Travel Industry and how this technology is helping buyers find quality Motorcoach companies based on metrics such as location, safety record, vehicles, reputation and more.

**The EasyBusRental is currently in Beta but the official launch will happen at UMA Motorcoach Expo

January 18, 2010 – 11:00 am

The new EasyBusRental.com website powered by TravelManager has been extremely well received at the ABA Marketplace event in Gaylord National Hotel & Conference Center . All the Tour Operators and Group Transport buyers we’ve met over the last few days are really excited about using the service. The common message we’re hearing is the difficulty they have finding good companies in different areas and that the typical quote response times are in days rather than hours.

EasyBusRental Beta Website - Launched at ABA Marketplace

There’s a huge opportunity for Bus Operators to get more business from National buyers if they provide quality information on their profiles. Our focus over the next few weeks is improve the quality of our existing Bus Operators profile information to move the site from Beta to version 1.0 at the next major event (UMA Motorcoach Expo).

**Version 2.0 will include real-time online booking later in the year.

October 9, 2009 – 3:00 pm

This is a common discussion I’ve been having with operators over the last few years. The typical reaction is that’s too hard to generate an accurate price in real-time and also there’s a fear that online booking will facilitate shopping around for the cheapest price.

The reality is the Motorcoach is not seen as a viable alternative for a large percentage of the population. In fact the figure of 7-9% is quoted regularly at conferences about the percentage of North Americas that use Motorcoaches. So why is it that the remaining at worst 81% don’t ever use your services?

1) Lack of Awareness

2) Unfashionable image of a “Motorcoach” (an old Bus)

3) Not marketing to new markets / customers (too much focus on older/traditional audience)

4) Inability to get a fast quote/price

5) All of the above and more…

I see the Motorcoach Council are trying to coordinate an industry wide campaign with their “Motorcoachified” message which is a step in the right direction on the awareness front but….

Internet Sales coming soon

It’s not enough the industry needs to change how it sells to the new customers who will what the convenience of real-time booking before they see the Motorcoach as a real alternative to taking a car, train or flight.

It can happen but does the industry what this? – We think at TravelManager that 2010 is the year for it happen

Regards,

Eamonn

**Not convinced of the benefits? Here’s a good article from the LCT (Limousine, Charter & Tour) website: http://www.lctmag.com/features/features-story.cfm?id=1537

October 2, 2009 – 8:30 am

With the increasing number of ways for customers to express their opinion about your product or service there’s a new trend to monitor sentiment on the Internet. Basically it’s about tracking whether the crowds opinion is positive or negative in blogs, social networks, news articles, online forums etc.

Good and Bad Sentiment Online

What does this mean for the Motorcoach industry? Well not a whole lot at the moment, but there’s an opportunity here to get and stay ahead of your competitors by starting to invest in your online reputation.

This is more than optimizing your website for search engines and more about really listening to what’s being said about your company good and bad. In fact as often is the case with dealing with traditional customer complaints, dealing with the negative effectively can often turn into a positive experience for the disgruntled customer.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to share my experiences about Twitter and similar tools you can use to manage your online reputation.

Regards,

Eamonn

*Data mining and connecting with services like Facebook and Twitter will be part of TravelManager in 2010 to help our users connect with new customers and retain existing ones.

Don’t just take my word for it! Recent Article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24emotion.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

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