Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) has launched an agent booking module for its Affiliate Voyager product, expected to grant agent partners an efficient way to access EAN’s hotel rates and availabilities in addition to its API and ‘Hotels.com for Partners’ template solution.
The booking module expands the range of tasks an agent can perform themselves. With comprehensive search, comparison and payment options on more than 290,000 properties, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to deal with customer enquiries and make or manage bookings directly rather than asking their hotel supplier to do it.
In addition to sending, reconfirming and cancelling itineraries, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to make changes to traveller’s personal information, travel dates, property, room type and bed configuration.
Agents can specify and change travellers’ special requests, view cancellation policies, and search booking and payment histories.
They can also create multiple itineraries in one shopping cart, view localised content with multi-language and multi-currency display options.
Ariane Gorin, senior vice president and general manager, EAN brand, said: “We estimate that Affiliate Voyager will result in more efficient sales and customer service experiences for agencies, with a 15-plus per cent increase in customer requests that the agent can handle without escalation and a five-plus per cent reduction in total handle time for affiliate agents.”
Affiliate Voyager, launched in 2015 as a way for agents to manage bookings made through the EAN API, is used by more than 2,500 of Expedia’s agents worldwide. It comes with face-to-face and online training to drive agent adoption, alongside reporting and full support from EAN.
