With the enormous shift towards online travel booking in recent years, Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s) or Resellers, play an increasingly important role in travel distribution.

They are now becoming integral to the success of tour and activity businesses in terms of boosting bookings and revenue.

Traditionally, OTA’s and suppliers interfaced using Extranet systems whereby suppliers logged in to individual systems to load inventory and check for bookings. In recent years we have been seeing a flurry of activity in the tour and activity sector, as suppliers and resellers automate their processes.

The tour and activity sector, with its extensive range of product offerings, has been a slow starter compared to the air and accommodation sectors. But it is catching up. Today there are dozens of supplier reservation systems, such as Zaui Software and reseller systems such as the TripAdvisor/Viator partnership that now interface automatically through their API’s to provide instant inventory checks, bookings, modifications and cancellations.

Why you should be connected to online resellers

• Vastly expand your reach. Open your door to a massive online marketplace. Sell your products on some of the world’s largest tour and activity sites.
• Manage all inventory from a single source. No need to check and update multiple systems.
• Receive bookings automatically. No data entry errors and no need to re-confirm availability.
• Receive booking modifications and cancellations automatically. Also set rules to limit modifications and cancellations too close to the tour date.
• Never overbook your tours. And overcome what has traditionally been a major hurdle in the industry.
• Decide who to connect with. Choose which partners you want to work with and build individual agreements with them.
• Channel Management. Control your inventory. Choose what products you make available, how much you are willing to sell and what dates are available via these channels.

How to get started:

First of all, you will need a tour reservation and management system with a direct connection to the OTA/reseller you want to connect with. From there it is a matter of working with your reservation system to obtain authorization to connect and you can start selling!

What Online Travel Agencies are connected to Zaui?

Zaui has direct connections with the following OTA’s. And more to come.