The global online airline booking platform market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 7.5% from 2024-2032. This signifies an exponential increase in the number of airline travelers. Travel agencies can leverage this opportunity by equipping themselves to manage a large number of bookings. Travel agents should invest in professional flight search engines to cater to the increasing traveling demands. By integrating a travel search engine into the agency’s online portal, travel managers can take their business to the next level. Let us delve deeper into how this comprehensive integration of flight search engines and online travel portals works.
What is a flight search engine?
Flight search engines are designed to ease the workload on travel agents. The conventional method of finding suitable flight schedules and prices for customers involved extensive research by visiting multiple sources. But a flight search engine makes that easy by consolidating all flight details from different airlines. Travel agents and customers can directly search for their preferred flight on these search engines. They can narrow their results by adding filters based on budgets, flight timings, destinations, etc.
How do travel solutions integrated with flight search engines help travel agencies?
Instant bookings
Flight search engines can confirm bookings within seconds, leading to a delightful booking experience for customers and time efficiency for travel agents. These search engines are powered by advanced technologies that enhance their responsiveness. Many engines also use GDS, i.e. Global Distribution Systems that act as a connecting bridge between the travel agency and airlines, and provide real-time information.
Category-based service offerings
A flight search engine helps travel agencies offer a wide range of services. Agencies can further divide that into business class flight search engines, international flight search engines, domestic flight search engines, and more. Categorizing based on these requirements allows easy searching and time-efficient results.
Cheap flight prices
Airlines provide flights at cheaper rates to travel companies that directly partner with them. When a travel portal is integrated with a flight search engine, it becomes a money-generating element for the agency. Audiences prefer to make bookings with travel agencies that offer services at affordable rates.
Custom search options
- Search by price: Travelers want services under their budgets. So, instead of providing random options, travel agencies can simply search for flights based on their prices.
- Search by schedule: Different customers have distinct travel schedules, filtering the searches based on their schedule and timings saves time and provides valuable results.
- Search by on-flight meal: Travelers can get ‘hangry’ real quick! Flight anxiety and pressure can get to their heads. That is why offering good-quality food according to their preferences should be prioritized.
Booking alerts and confirmations
The best flight search engines are the ones that keep their customers updated on their bookings and flight timings. Sending timely alerts helps them stay on schedule, and portrays the travel agency as a customer-centric entity. These search engines also automatically share alerts when flight prices drop to the customer’s preferred rates.
Customer satisfaction
Travel portals with API-integrated flight search engines successfully attain customer satisfaction. By providing affordable flights, regular flight updates, on-flight meal details, and other amenities, these portals allow travel agencies to cater to the rising demands. Offering quality services on time elevates customer experience, turning them into loyal customers.
Features of the best airline search engine
Payment options
A well-integrated and secure payment option should be on the travel agency’s flight search engines. People often hesitate while making online transactions. This is why the travel search engine should offer multiple payment gateways that allow users to make payments through their preferred modes. These payment models should be 100% encrypted and safe.
Travel history
This feature helps customers and travel agencies both. Users often prefer to book flights with airlines that delivered a satisfactory experience in the past. They can view their travel history in the portal and re-book with the same airline. This also assists travel agencies in providing better services to customers according to their search and travel booking history.
User recommendations
A well-developed travel portal collects and analyzes customer data to expand its services with improved quality. This helps in creating personalized packages and recommendations for different users.
Wrapping up
Travel agencies actively integrate their online travel portals with sophisticated flight search engines. They scale the agency’s business by providing prompt assistance to customers. These engines are equipped with the latest tools that assist travel agents in better managing their operations. The agency can also conduct in-depth research on customer preferences before sending flight recommendations. A smartly integrated flight search engine can elevate the agency’s business and provide growth opportunities. Travel companies looking for a solid flight search engine can contact TBOHolidays.
Flight Search Engines FAQs
A flight search engine is a tech-driven platform that helps travel agents and users to search for their preferred flights. These engines gather flight information like ticket prices, schedules, etc.
Flight search option, filter-based searches, payment gateways, and booking history section are the features that are popularly found in flight search engines.
Yes, professionally developed flight search engines are safeguarded by multiple protection layers. Experts use encryption technology and other essential resources to make these platforms secure.
Flight search engines help in getting flight tickets at affordable prices. This is a major reason behind their popularity, travelers get to book cheap flight tickets.
Pratyush Kumar Srivastava is a seasoned expert in B2B travel writing with years of experience in the industry. With a deep understanding of the intricacies of travel technology, supplier relationships, and market trends, Pratyush offers valuable insights to help businesses optimize their travel booking strategies. Passionate about innovation and efficiency, he is dedicated to guiding travel agencies through the complexities of modern distribution channels to achieve growth and success.
