Business

TravRays, a Dubai-based travel technology company,has launched a complete end-to-end technology platform which encompasses an advanced Booking Engine using multiple sources of air and non-air content,combined with customer profiling, comprehensive reporting and management capabilities, thereby addressing the need of travel industry and e-retail products for distribution network.

Hari Kumar Manivannan, General Manager of TravRays, said through its Core Engine, TravRays (www.travrays.ae) was all geared up to provide solutions and manage business requirements to multiple opportunities that exist in a market place. The systems act as a platform where travel agents, travel suppliers such as airlines, car rentals and hotels can be both a supplier and a customer at the same time.

He added: With our professional experience of 20 plus years in the industry, we understand the importance of delivery and customer satisfaction. Our team and the core engine are committed to service round the clock. TravRays platform is ready to integrate with any travel supplier within the UAE and beyond. We have beta-tested with over 75 travel agents and our clientele base is increasing day by day.

Following its official launch on Tuesday (September 8) at the Grand Excelsior Hotel in Dubai, a two-day workshop has been planned with five sessions of 90 minutes each on September 9 and 10 at the same venue with TravRays team briefing the industry stakeholders about the concept and its benefits.
TravRays has been under test phase since the past few months and has been customized to meet the needs of the customers in UAE. Over 150 people have been working in the back office on its development in the southern Indian city of Chennai. Promoters have invested heavily in building up the smart technology platform for the 21st century travel business. TravRays is powered by a unique caching and fare pricing engine, ensuring the lowest and the most accurate fares.

R Sankaranarayanan, founder of this technology, said TravRays offers a single window to address the needs of the travel agency allowing the administrators/consultants and key decision-makers to have complete control of their business.

The Core Engine will extend through proper solutions and business offerings to multiple opportunities that exist in market place. TravRays has a Business on Agent office (BOA) which is a fully integrated ERP solution, GSA, Sub-Agent and Reseller model.

He said: Adding more value with business knowledge allows us to derive new way of thought process and contributions to customers from the design to implementation, by which it makes the customer feel that they have got the right solution. We aim to exceed the expectation of customer when it comes to the business process flow understanding and mapping the business need of the customers.

TravRays is currently focused in the UAE, and it will expand to GCC markets in next two years. In the UAE, it has set a target of bringing 2500 travel agents under the platform.

End to end transactions of a travel agency might look easy and smooth for laymen, but unlike the common perception, it is complex and hectic. Almost 75 per cent of all travel industry transactions are manual. Existing platforms -in the market offer-only single interface (airlines) whereas TravRays offers multiple content option with process made simple, transparent and straight-forward, he said.

The UAE is a significantly important travel market. Annually, about 16 million airline seats are sold in the UAE, out of which about 60 per cent are going through the travel agencies, he said, adding that the new platform will help reduce the time span for transactions considerably.

According to IATA, $16.6 billion worth air tickets were sold in the Middle East last year through travel agents (40 million air tickets), of which $4.1 billion worth air tickets were picked up in the UAE. IATA-approved agents sold 7.4 million air tickets in UAE last year. The UAE ranked 18th in the world for the volume of air tickets sold through the IATA-approved travel agencies last year.

TravRays team consists of senior professionals from Airline, Global Distribution System (GDS) industry, technology companies such as SITA, technology enablers, consultants and travel agency experts.

The present travel industry has seen significant changes happening in terms of technology advancement by airline systems. Obviously with the advancement of such technologies it becomes difficult to fulfill the needs with legacy systems. New avenues of business like bus, car rentals, hotel markets and other travel service providers (Inbound Tourism, Religious Travel and Ground Services) can be automated easily and the same can be distributed to the travel trade (most potential sales point).

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