Count the work behind every travel booking

A confirmed booking tells an agency that a sale has been made. It does not tell the whole story of the work required to get there. The adviser may have researched several options, rebuilt a proposal after a change of dates and entered the same information into more than one system.

That work matters when a business is looking closely at its costs. On 10 September 2026, ABTA submitted its recommendations to the Treasury ahead of the Autumn Budget. They included targeted support for high-street travel businesses through business rates and a more flexible approach to skills and training. These were requests for government action, rather than announced measures.

I support the argument that skilled travel businesses need room to operate. Software will not resolve business rates or remove every cost pressure facing an agency. As a technology provider, however, I think we should be accountable for the work our systems ask people to do and the repetition they help remove.

An adviser being busy is not, on its own, proof that the process works well. It is worth finding out how much of that activity helps the customer choose and how much simply gets information from one place to another.

Follow one enquiry all the way through

Start with an ordinary recent enquiry. Choose something representative of the work your team handles regularly, rather than the unusually complicated booking everybody remembers. Ask the adviser to walk through it from the first conversation to confirmation.

Record where information was first captured, where it was copied and which systems were used. Include the proposal, any revisions and the steps after the customer agreed to proceed. If another colleague took over at any point, look at what they needed before they could continue.

Keep active work separate from waiting time. A customer taking two days to decide is different from an adviser spending time reconstructing an itinerary. Both affect the elapsed time between enquiry and booking, but they do not call for the same response.

This exercise should help the adviser describe the job as it actually happens. It should not become a search for someone to blame. A spreadsheet or handwritten note may exist because an earlier system failed to provide information people needed. Understand that purpose before removing it.

Also include an enquiry that did not convert. The time spent researching and preparing unsuccessful proposals still belongs in the picture. Looking only at completed bookings can miss a substantial part of the team’s effort, even without putting a precise financial value on every minute.

Separate useful advice from repeated administration

Some work deserves time. Understanding a customer’s requirements, comparing suitable options and explaining a recommendation are central to the service an agent provides. A shorter process is not automatically a better one if it weakens those conversations.

Repeated administration deserves a different examination. Typing the same passenger information again, transferring trip details into another template or searching for the latest version of a proposal can occupy the same adviser without improving the advice.

Write down the reason for each repeated step. Sometimes there is a necessary check. Sometimes two systems need information in different formats. Sometimes nobody can explain the step beyond the fact that it has always been done that way.

This gives you a useful basis for choosing what to change. Preserve checks that protect accuracy and customer understanding. Investigate whether information can move between stages without being rebuilt. Make the intended improvement specific enough that you can recognise it when you see it.

For example, an agency might decide that a revised quote should not require someone to reconstruct the entire proposal. That is a concrete requirement to test with a technology supplier. A general request for greater efficiency leaves much more room for misunderstanding.

Connect the quote to the booking where the source allows it

Quick Quote is one way Travelgenix addresses this part of the sale. It supports three routes into a proposal: building it manually, bringing in trip details from a tour operator’s website link or using Travelgenix live search results. The business can present a branded quote and edit the trip details, wording and pricing before sending it.

The source of the quote matters. When it is built from Travelgenix live search results, the adviser is working with bookable availability and can quote and book within the same platform. That is the connected workflow to examine when the aim is to reduce copying between a proposal tool and a separate booking system.

A manually entered quote or one created from a pasted supplier link should not be treated as though it automatically has the same live booking connection. Be equally careful about the customer’s expectations: a quote should not imply that a price or availability has been held unless the relevant booking conditions actually provide for that.

Carry the review beyond booking acceptance

The booking process continues after a proposal is accepted. The person dealing with the next step needs to understand what has been agreed and where the relevant information sits. If they have to search several places or ask the original adviser to explain the booking again, there is more work to examine.

Travelify, the Travelgenix mid-office platform, brings enquiries, customer information and bookings into one interface. Its order manager provides visibility of bookings at different stages. It also supports pricing rules, including fixed or percentage mark-ups, so the commercial setup can be managed within the platform. It works alongside accounting software rather than replacing the accounting function.

The practical test for your business is whether a colleague can find what they need and continue the work accurately. During a demonstration, ask to see the stages that matter to your team. Use a realistic example and include a change or a handover, because a straightforward first attempt will not reveal every difficulty.

Be clear about the boundaries of a proposed setup. Confirm which suppliers and products are involved and which steps remain outside it. An improvement can still be worthwhile when it covers part of the work, provided everyone understands the scope before making a decision.

Prove the improvement on a small piece of work

Avoid changing every process at once. Choose a repeated task from the enquiry review and agree what a successful improvement would look like. Fewer repeated entries or an easier handover are easier to assess than a broad promise to transform the business.

Record a simple starting point. Note the systems used, the information entered more than once and any corrections that were needed. Then follow comparable work through the proposed process. Ask the advisers doing it where the effort has reduced and where it has moved.

That last question matters. A change may save the salesperson time while creating another job for the operations team. Review the complete journey before declaring a saving. Include the learning and setup effort as well, so the team has a fair opportunity to judge the new approach.

Do not assume that time released becomes an immediate reduction in payroll. It may give an adviser room to follow up an enquiry, handle a complex question or finish the day without an administration backlog. Decide which use matters most to the business and watch whether the improvement makes it possible.

Set a practical standard for your technology

Technology should make it easier for a skilled person to do useful work. That is the standard I would apply to Travelgenix and to any other supplier. Ask for a demonstration of the task you need to improve, with enough detail to understand the work that remains.

ABTA’s call for support and an agency’s review of its own processes can sit alongside each other. External costs deserve attention, and so does avoidable repetition inside the business. Neither requires us to pretend that an adviser should rush a customer or that every booking can follow an identical route.

Take one enquiry to your next team meeting and trace the work behind it. If quoting and re-keying are where the time goes, bring an anonymised example to Travelgenix. We can work through the relevant Quick Quote and Travelify steps with you and establish which parts of that process our platform can help simplify.