Exponential Rise in Tourism from India
In the past 3 years, global tourism has been rising rapidly. In the year 2024, there was a significant increase in global tourism of 11% in comparison to 2023. In 2024, around 3.02 crore Indian nationals travelled internationally highlighting a near-complete recovery of outbound tourism.
In order to gain a competitive edge and bigger profit margin in this market growth outbound DMCs have been rushing fast to leverage technology. The travel industry is moving fast to adapt technologies such as AI, live-APIs, SaaS solutions, etc. There are several types of software catering the needs of travel business according to their operations whether B2B or B2C.
But let’s start by understanding how an outbound tour operator works and where they feel the need to upgrade?
Modern Problems Outbound DMCs face to scale their business?
An outbound DMC deals with a large volume of enquiries, which includes multiple suppliers across cities. For this diversity, complex itineraries need to be created according to the requirements of the client (coming from different regions/having different budgets).
Management of all these operations manually by using multiple basic tools, such as WhatsApp, Email, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint is not a scalable solution. You can manage basic operations but at scale, the system starts to crack. This manual work often results in situations like delayed response, or costing errors, leading to financial loss and missed follow-ups; hurting brand in turn.
These problems directly affect the conversion% of an outbound DMC, as clients’ trust also degrades from the brand. One way to solve this problem by throwing more people onto the problem is often not the best way to deal with it.
Major challenges faced by outbound DMCs using traditional methods management
- The communication style used in both email and WhatsApp is plain or unprofessional. This negatively affects the brand image and might impact client trust.
- Incomplete information is recorded at the time of booking, just to confirm the booking quickly. In future, this piles up a lot of manual data entry. Plus back-and-forth communication is required during operations, leading to incomplete information and errors.
- Lump sum rates provided without proper breakdown can be inaccurate. Relying on the salesperson’s memory can lead to underquoting, which hurts profitability in the long run.
- Important data gets lost or changed if someone accidentally edits within an Excel sheet. This leads to confusion, errors, and data loss.
- There is a lack of end-to-end information flow, leading to communication gaps between teams. As a result inaccurate information gets communicated which can cause wrong bookings and operational issues.
- Employees spend too much time on repetitive data entry. Sometimes the same information is entered multiple times in different sheets.
- Voucher generation is very time-consuming and manual. It takes long hours and is prone to human errors, which affects efficiency.
- Each employee needs to maintain multiple excel sheets separately for sales, trips, day-wise activities, vendor payments, and collections.
- Coordination between local team and ground operators is difficult leading to communication delays and operational challenges.
Do Modern Problems require Modern Solutions?
A travel management software brings a standard process to the travel business. It helps in organising scattered tools, departments, and information under one platform. These software have evolved over a period of time by solving the same problem multiple tour operators face. As a result, new companies also get benefitted by adapting best practices from big players who have managed to scale their businesses.
It works on simplifying the complex procedures and eliminating the repetitive activities. As the repetitive tasks such as itinerary building, voucher generation, direct communication via email and whatsapp messages are automated in the system. It results in saving the time of your team which they can invest in making the services more personalised for the customers.
By organizing complex tasks of on-tours management such as booking, reservations, cutoff dates and payment tracking a travel management software eliminates errors from the workflow. This helps in bringing financial stability to the business by eliminating loss caused by error.
Features of a Travel Management software that make difference
| Features | What it does | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Auto- Lead Management | Leads with the help of API are automatically captured in the software from Google Forms, Landing Pages, Websites, Meta Ads, 3rd party Lead Capturing APIs like Tripcrafters. Along with this they are automatically assigned to the team. You can also use custom distribution rules to assign leads to your team automatically | No inquiry is missed, time and dependency on lead distributor is eliminated time is saved team starts working instantly |
| Travel Itinerary Builder | Professional itinerary customised according to your brand can be made in a Travel CRM within minutes | Response time reduces Brand reputation improves team gets speed |
| Auto-Tour Costing | Automatically the calculations are done in the system. Total cost of a package is calculated automatically by pulling data from supplier contracts, hotel rates, transport costs, activities, markups, and currency exchange rates | Zero costing mistake and faster calculations |
| Voucher Generation | Instant booking confirmation & hotels/service vouchers in one click are created from the system since all the information related to the package is already available in the system | Errors are reduced standard and comprehensive vouchers are generated faster team is not overburdened |
| Payment Tracking | Incoming and outgoing payments can be tracked easily in the system. Status of all payments and their status is present in the system | Cutoff dates are never missed Improve cashflow and better vendor relations |
| Performance Reports, MIS & Ledger | The system provides one-click access to the performance reports for sales team, destination, and agents | Visibility of performance efficient decision making for future proper track of profit and loss |
| Automated Momentum Chart | Features like Smart tour calendar of Sembark can give one dashboard which helps in tracking daily schedules easily. Cabs/Activities Booking status, Driver & Vehicle Details, hotels reservation Status, planned activities and Payments History all can be managed at one place | 100% visibility of on-tour operationsNever miss a booking, payment or reservation |
| Alert & Reminder | With every status updated in the software reminder and alert can be set in the Travel CRM software for payments, bookings and reservations | Eliminates booking and reservation error no chance of missing Incoming and outgoing payments |
Benefits of implementing a Travel Management (CRM) Software
By implementing a Travel CRM Software like Sembark Travel Management Software you not just invest in a system to manage data, but you invest in efficient time management, revenue boost, opportunities to scale, and simplify management of daily operations. Major benefits to the scalability of an Outbound DMC with Sembark are:
- Better coordination in a team with every information on a single platform makes it easy for the sales team, operations team, and accounts team to maintain efficient communication without confusion in data sharing.
- Conversion rate increases as response time decreases, follow-ups are timely done, automatically the conversion rate starts to grow with improved customer experience.
- Client relationship and supplier relationship also improves with the help since response time is less and more personalised services are provided in less time.
- Cash flow management is easy with real time tracking of all the incoming and outgoing payments in the system.
- Data security and easy access to data logs without the need to maintain hundreds of spreadsheets and save them on multiple systems.
Pricing and ROI Consideration
When choosing travel management software, don’t just look at the price tag but also look at the return on investment (ROI). A low-cost tool may seem attractive but could lack critical features, leading to hidden costs in time, errors, and missed business opportunities. Instead, focus on software that helps you save hours of manual work, reduce errors, improve conversions, and scale with the same team size.
Instead of focusing on the price tag of a software, look for return on investment for profit. A software available at low cost might seem an efficient deal but if it lacks important features it will lead your business to hidden costs in errors, time and missed opportunities.
Instead, focus on software that helps you save hours of manual work, reduce errors, improve conversions, and scale with the same team size. This will help you do the smart calculation and effective decision making.
For example a software might be INR 4000/month but if it helps you crack even 1 more deal, than it has paid for its expense.
The right approach is not “What does it cost?” but “How much more profit and efficiency will it bring?”
Conclusion
It is now important to understand that for scaling an outbound tour operators you need to do more than just add the staff and suppliers to your network. You need to play smart with the technology also. Making the right choice of decision by understanding what you exactly need in a business is the key to select efficient Travel CRM Software for your Outbound DMC. Sembark Travel Management software not only solves your scattered workflow in the present but also unlocks limitless scaling opportunities for the future. 815+ DMCs have been utilizing sembark in 20+ countries to scale their travel business with higher profit and less manual effort.
Recommended Blogs:
- Why Are Leading Kashmir DMCs Switching To Travel CRM Software
- How Kerala DMCs Can Benefit From B2B Travel Software
- Why Travel CRM Software is the Game-Changer for Andaman DMCs
- Why Are Leading Kashmir DMCs Switching To Travel CRM Software
