Presentation covering direct connects, google, operational improvements, sales and marketing best practices.

1. The R Group presentingTRAVEL TECHNOLOGY TRENDS AND ISSUES 2011

3. CTI, TTG, and TRX

4. Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline

6. Increase supplier revenues

7. Reducing costs thru call center management and BPO

10. Control over the buying network

13. Control over who can sell their product

14. Ability to promote direct connects

16. Agency incentives from the GDS will go down

17. Airline will promote a direct connect solution

19. Process Improvements Hotels is where it’s at! 90/20 and being nice are expensive and don’t matter much to the customer. Incentive programs aren’t working. Convert to points/trips and not cash. Get more out of mid-office robotics. Establish larger team size to realize savings. Consolidate locations. Process Improvements

20. Process Improvements Identify MLAs and fix. Establish a brand and focus – service. Establish a culture of preferred supplier support. Charge for all value added services. Record all calls and use for coaching agents. Process Improvements

21. Google Google

22. Google Google

23. Where is all this going?

24. Sales Best Practices Hired by a travel card provider to identify the best practices when selling to the small and midsize corporate market. Interviewed over 25 executives both internal and external. Including: All mega travel agencies Both OTA and Traditional agencies Technology providers Summarized the results into top 10 themes. Sales

25. Sales Best Practices Process is important. Demand gen, lead gen, follow-up, lead scoring, sales, and close. Marketing should establish a process for both client and prospect communication – drumbeat. What’s your story? Don’t cold call, warm call. Technology can be an effective selling tool if “perceived” as unique. Best to have one large “branding” event (NBTA) and several smaller sales events (Roadshows). At NBTA – send “lumpy” to qualified leads and require “activation” to win. Sales

26. Sales Best Practices Tell-a-sales can be effective both insourced and outsourced. Suspect database is key. Use a CRM (Salesforce.com) rigorously. Create scorecards by salesman. Establish channel partners to provide qualified leads. Leverage their marketing and spend. Don’t be quick to hire and fire. Tenure matters. Reassign if tired. Hire passionate, smart people. Motivated to win. Rolodex matters in large market. Sales

28. CRM Scoring

29. Routing

30. Event, TShow, Group

31. First call – qualification and closing if small.

32. Escalation to sales when appropriate – appt setting.

33. Qualified

34. Educational

35. Frequency

37. Mobile Mobile

38. Future

39. Future

40. Future

41. Future

42. Future