Post covid, technology was not something that most business owners in the hospitality industry and any other industry at large paid attention to as long as they had a website that gives information, a telephone, a diary for manual bookings and travel agencies as well as some booking platforms that help them sell their products. However, covid 19 became a wake-up call for many business operators as technology became the new normal. With the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen an increase in technology adoption in an incredibly compressed time and at a fast pace.

Clearly, digitization and automation have accelerated even more rapidly across the board. Several in-person events have successfully transitioned to being given online. Many activities are now controlled remotely, including telemedicine, distance learning, internet commerce, entertainment, journalism, virtual tours and virtual physical activities such as yoga and fitness training. In this instance, most property owners quickly switched to direct online bookings and most are seeking outsourced booking offices to run their OTAs. Who would have thought that Channel managers, property management systems and mobile apps would become mainstream within a short space of time? This shows how many technologies that would have taken years, if not decades, to become widespread were hastened as a result of the epidemic.

We live at a time when technological advancements have improved corporate life in a wide range of businesses. Many work tools have become important and necessary in order to maintain operational and economic competitiveness. This is especially true in the hospitality industry, where booking office services are used to manage quotation and reservation requests. The most important part of an accommodation facility's operation is to always be present, not to miss out on opportunities to interact with customers and that is the reason why many businesses rely on outsourcing to get effective results.

Outsourced booking offices are becoming very popular in any industry generally and there are many various types of back-office outsourcing organizations nowadays, ranging from project-based outsourcing to hourly rates, flat monthly service prices, and a la carte packages to meet each company's specific needs. Many companies are hesitant to transition to outsourcing because they don't understand how the parts fit together in this strategy. However, with today's technological breakthroughs, outsourcing has never been simpler and it can provide a more advanced and cost-effective solution.

What are outsourced booking offices? These are external companies hired to perform tasks and operations on their behalf of the company seeking their service. Because of outsourcing booking offices, companies save a lot of time by using these services, allowing them to focus on their core business tasks. They strengthen their company capacities in this way, allowing them to function better than before.

Unquestionably, the pandemic accelerated the rise of technology in our lives and transformed us into more digital species, with all the benefits and downsides that entails.

Below are some of the advantages of using an outsourced booking office:

Picture a large hotel in the heart of the city with 300 rooms, a health spa, a restaurant, and a conference centre. Now consider how many various parts must be managed in order for the hotel to remain running. Marketing, upkeep, and menu design are all things that need to be taken care of. Housekeeping, customer service, and human resources are just a some of the services available not to mention Porterage, pool testing, and payroll management the list goes on and on. Keeping track of everything may be difficult, to say the least which is where outsourcing comes in.

• An outsourcing service provider has highly-trained staff and great methodologies that can handle business activities in a more efficient way.
• Travel companies can form better customer relationships by hiring a team from offshore outsourcing companies. This helps them run their business in different time zones and deliver a non-stop service, which is beneficial in performing better than their competitors.
• Business process management services are helpful to travel companies in removing language barriers, as outsourcing service providers have specialized teams that can serve customers in their native languages.
• Outsourcing reduces operational cost and helps travel companies overcome the challenge of finding specialists for better business processing.
• The use of the latest technology in business process solutions, ensures proper security of client’s data.
• Outsourcing partners can provide a company with the Business Process as a Service solution that employs cloud computing model. This increases automation in their business process by the use of latest technology. Thereby reduce the risk of errors.
• With the use of relevant software, outsourcing service providers can handle web-design projects of travel companies in a more effective way.
• Outsourcing some of the business activities to outsourcing partners allows travel companies to focus on the primary business tasks that are needed for their organizations’ overall growth.

References:

• A Quick Guide to the Benefits of Outsourcing Travel Business tasks
• Booking Office and Booking Management: The Advantage of Outsourcing
• The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Services

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