总部事件:Avoya看到Certares的投资增长了增长
byMarilee Crocker/
紧随新闻之后Certares has acquired an ownership stake in Avoya Travel,独立旅行顾问的度假平台和网络本周表示,它预计的增长速度会比其历史上的任何时候都快,但不会改变这种增长的轨迹。
Avoya联合首席执行官杰夫·安德森(Jeff Anderson)在在线2021 Avoya Travel Conference的开幕式上说:“我们将能够移动的范围和速度变得更大。”另外,安德森(Anderson)告诉记者期望“随着我们扩大新投资的规模,在2022年的公告中越来越稳定”。
Avoya领导团队。
在同一页上
Those announcements will build on Avoya’s existing business model, both Avoya and Certares said. The two firms have a “shared vision,” Certares senior managing director Colin Farmer told conference attendees.
That vision centers on Avoya’s patented technology, which is designed to help travelers find the right vacation product via its online platform, then connect them with the Avoya travel advisor best suited to fulfill their vacation dreams, while at the same time helping suppliers to reach “high-value, high-intent travelers” and “high-performing” travel sellers.
当然,Certares的充足资源将使Avoya“使事情更快地完成”。他不仅指确认资本。Farmer说,Certares在旅游行业中的“实质性存在”,包括其在TripAdvisor中的所有权股权,“导致与大量需求的独特关系”,同时创造了机会“增强” Avoya平台上产品的机会,” Farmer说。
同时,尽管输给了Covid近两年,但Avoya仍在达到其Avoya 2025增长计划的目标。
Increasing efficiencies in Agent Power, Avoya’s booking and CRM system, and on its consumer website is a key focus. The company has made incremental changes to both over the past year and will be rolling out more improvements to Agent Power in particular in coming weeks – “all things you guys have been asking for,” Anderson told advisors, without mentioning specifics.
顾问的营销支持
Avoya also plans to invest heavily in its Marketing Resource Center, with a goal of giving its advisors a top-quality digital creative agency, said Sam McCully, senior vice president of marketing.
Those advisors have told Avoya that what they want most are high-quality creative assets. So in October, Avoya introduced personalized marketing materials – not just for email and direct mail but across multiple channels, including social media, video, and “cool things like inspiration guides, shopping pack lists,” McCully said.
Last year Avoya introduced Smart Leads™, a program to help advisors prioritize outreach to past clients by identifying top prospects on any given day, based on criteria such as a client’s past booking patterns.
未来的重点将是改善诸如Smart Leads之类的计划的集成,并在代理商中提供可定制的营销资产,以使顾问提供更多的交钥匙解决方案。
Avoya also plans to do more in digital content creation. The company has relaunched its blog and will be “aggressively blogging and social posting” about new travel experiences, McCully said. Expanded direct marketing efforts in 2022 will include a new digital magazine.
Supply-side
对于其供应商合作伙伴,Avoya承诺将在其平台内“扩大品牌存在”,包括通过使供应商能够将自己的内容加载到营销资源中心。
It has also introduced a “brand sales program” that Avoya’s sales team will bring to member agencies to support them in selling the products they specialize in. “We’ve re-geared our sales team around product,” a shift away from working with agencies on an account basis, said Steve Hirshan, senior vice president of sales.
至于发展其顾问网络,Avoya再次寻求吸引新的旅途企业家。在2020年大流行之后,阿沃亚(Avoya)在这项工作中按了暂停按钮,因为它无法提供其通常的客户潜在客户水平。从历史上看,新的旅行顾问占阿沃亚增长的85%至90%。
Business outlook
高管们说,尽管Omicron Covid变体正在造成不安,但总体而言,旅行的前景尤其是强大。12月1日,Avoya录制了200万美元的预订日,通常要等到Wave季节开始就不会经历。
像其他人一样,阿沃亚(Avoya)在高端看到增长,在2019年9月至11月,上高级和奢侈品的预订增长了30%。与2019年相比,11月的土地假期销售额增长了28%。
“即使有了新的[Omicron]变体,我们对事情的持续发展感到惊喜和兴奋,”合伙伙伴关系高级副总裁Ashley Hunter说。
阿沃亚说,在2022年,预订的大部分是在下半年出发的,而2023年的预订则是“排行榜”。
Broken compensation model
Of course, the trend toward ever-lengthening booking windows only exacerbates advisors’ cash-flow challenges. In response, Avoya has been pushing suppliers since early in the pandemic to pay upfront “booking commissions,” whether through private agreements like those it has negotiated with some partners or the blanket enhancements that a few suppliers have made to their commission programs.
“The compensation model between suppliers and their distribution system is broken,” Anderson said. “Suppliers [have] to realize that they cannot have a voluntary workforce who’s paid solely on production [be forced to] wait and wait and wait to be compensated.
“The survival of the travel agency distribution system is going to depend on suppliers recognizing that a pay for performance business partner will only survive if they put cash in now.”