Hotel Express booking platform to launch
Ensemble Travel Group is launching a new hotel-booking platform powered by Hotelzon, a Travelport company.
Called Ensemble Hotel Express, it will give priority display to Ensemble's Hotel & Resort Collection and associated amenities. It will also display preferred rates from the Radius Travel Global Hotel Program, Ensemble's preferred corporate hotel offering. Ensemble members will be able to book more than 39,000 hotels in 137 countries through Radius.
The Hotelzon platform is tailored to the individual agent. When an Ensemble member makes a booking, that member's IATA number will be the only one the hotel sees.
The new Hotel Express provides richer content than its predecessor. For example, it will have 360-degree views of hotels and incorporates Google Maps, enabling an agent to input the address of a meeting a client is attending and see all the hotels near it.
"Our new partnerships with Hotelzon and Radius Travel will put our members in a very competitive position to really ramp up both their corporate and leisure business," Libbie Rice, Ensemble's co-president, said.
Ensemble will complete its migration to the new platform in December.
Agents using a GDS can make their bookings in the GDS using the Ensemble rates codes. -- K.R.
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Ensemble Travel Group is spreading out across the Pacific with the launch of Ensemble Australia/New Zealand, its first overseas expansion.
The group made the announcement at the Ensemble Travel Group 2014 International Conference held here.
Such globalization is a growing trend among agency groups. American Express has long had a global network with its proprietary agencies in various countries.
Virtuoso is already Down Under, with a 10-year-old subsidiary, Virtuoso Australia Pty Ltd., which has 32 agencies and 57 locations. It moved into South America 17 years ago and has members in 20 countries. In May, it announced plans to expand into Europe and expects to announce its first European members by year's end.
In March, Travel Leaders Group combined its two biggest operations in the U.K., Tzell U.K. and Protravel International U.K., into a single office in London. The company said it is planning "aggressive expansion" in the U.K. and to then use that expansion as a springboard into continental Europe.
Travelsavers, which has locations in more the 30 countries, moved into Australia earlier this year.
Ensemble co-presidents Lindsay Pearlman and Libbie Rice told attendees that the expansion would present an opportunity to increase both sales and Ensemble's clout with suppliers.
"With suppliers, it is now a global discussion," Pearlman said. "We already had one supplier come up to us who wants to do a global deal."
And because the Australian and New Zealand divisions can operate off Ensemble's existing platform, it enables Ensemble to scale its technology, Ensemble executives said.
In addition, they said, Australia and New Zealand members will be able to share their on-the-ground expertise with U.S. and Canadian counterparts and vice versa.
Trish Shepherd, who spent 27 years with American Express in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region, will be senior vice president and general manager of Ensemble Australia/New Zealand. She and Pearlman worked together for several years at American Express, where Pearlman was director and general manager of Canadian operations for several years.
Shepherd said that retail travel in Australia is going through an upheaval, with four major brands — Harvey World Travel, Jetset Travel, Travelworld and Travelscene American Express — consolidating under a single brand, Helloworld.
Some agencies that had invested decades in one of the phased-out brands are deciding to invest in their own brand, Shepherd said. Some are already forming new agency groups.
Ensemble, a cooperative consortia whose members own shares, will be unique in Australia and New Zealand in that it offers revenue sharing to its members, the group's executives said. Members in Australia and New Zealand will not be shareholders, however, as U.S. and Canadian agents now are. (Initially, Canadian agents were not shareholders but now are.)
Ensemble has been considering a global move for three years, its executives said.
It is entering a competitive field.
"Australia and New Zealand are crowded markets," said travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research. "It will be critical for Ensemble to offer clear, compelling and relevant points of differentiation. There are strong, home-grown agency brands such as FlightCentre in Australia. With other global brands either in these countries or having announced their intentions to enter the region, Ensemble will find itself amid one of the toughest competitive landscapes."
At the same time, he said, the "combination of extensive vacation time, high spending and perennial popularity of the travel agency channel make Australia and New Zealand compelling markets to explore serving."
Right now, Canadian and U.S. Ensemble members share some of the same preferred suppliers, but each group has some suppliers that are unique to them. The same will be true with Australia and New Zealand.
The new branch expects to have members in about three months, said Pearlman, who added that the three groups will use the same operating platform.
Ensemble members were enthusiastic about the announcement, giving Rice and Pearlman a standing ovation when they announced the new division at the opening session of the conference.