How do you choose your collaborators?
In a very dynamic market such as tourism, it is essential to understand that the focus will always be on quality and not on quality, and for this reason you must ask yourself if you really want to integrate in-store your online all the tour operators on the market or only those worth collaborating with.
Before choosing a particular supplier, do a little analysis of the supplier's numbers, such as turnover, number of employees, partnerships it has. Make sure that he is a reliable partner who will be able to help you and solve any situations you may have. Review its portfolio and pricing, fees, payment and cancellation terms, and ask for feedback from other market partners.
You may learn more from the "market" about the partner's reputation, credibility, transparency and support. All these details will be extremely important and will make the difference between the promises made at the beginning and the services provided along the way. Competitive pricing can sometimes be an easy trap to fall into.
Choose the benefits, not the price
In a long-term commercial relationship, especially when we are talking about a profitable business, you should not settle on the idea of a low price from the first moment. Pay attention, rather, to the benefits that you could gain: overcommissioning when you reach a certain volume, bonuses in a certain interval or even gift service packages for agents.
Maybe one offer is a little more expensive than another, but it includes certain benefits or guarantees that prove to be strong points even for the customer.
For example, with a package of combined services for accommodation at a certain hotel unit, the difference can be made by the type of room, a romantic dinner included, an extra spa service, a VIP transfer or even a flight with a line company instead of one low-cost.
Always focus on tour operators who can allow you to grow with them and who support you in moments of balance through specialized support and through the options offered in problematic situations. Such a collaborator can help you with all the necessary information to expand to a wider market, to a certain niche that you did not dare to explore and that may seem unapproachable initially.
Make sure you develop relationships of trust
Any organizing travel agency means something more than the services it sells, so when you want to improve your relationship with a particular tour operator, take into account its values and vision.
Honor your financial obligations on time, so that you don't end up being pulled by the sleeve for non-payment of services requested for resale to your tourists.
When a tour operator is satisfied or even proud of working with you, you will always have priority when you have a question, a concern or an atypical request.
The trust in a contractual relationship goes on both sides, as a result, you are not the only one who expects to benefit from certain benefits, but offers, in turn, involvement in promoting the products of the tour operator you have decided to work with.
Select collaborators
If you are constantly faced with various organizational problems caused by the tour operator or its suppliers, you have to weigh up whether, in the long term, it is worth maintaining the collaboration with it or would it be recommended that, in order to keep your reputation, to withdraw from the collaboration.
A selection must also be made at the level of online services because a fairly frequent problem is that certain tour operators make changes in the API files or in the way they send the information through the connection, and the technology that takes the data from these files starts to give errors in the stores online that integrates the offer.
When a tour operator fails to communicate that they have made changes, you don't know why certain searches no longer generate results on your website, and your potential tourists have no way of understanding what happened.
These are solid reasons to carefully select your collaborators to ensure that you provide quality service.
The TravelFuse platform has API integrations with the most important tour operators in the travel market. When you choose to have an online store with real-time offers, I advise you not to select a large number of tour operators that could make your search difficult, but to choose only those with whom you have a very good collaboration and which offers you a wide range of destinations.