LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. -- Friendly Holidays entered the
electronic-booking arena, opening its Web site to reservations from
travel agents and joining Sabre's Tour Guide with its product line.
Eric Aversa, company president, said the operator expects to go
on line with Amadeus and Worldspan in mid-October and, by the end
of the year, to be part of the Apollo tour booking system. From its
participation in Sabre, which started in August, Friendly Holidays
already has seen a boost in bookings from agents who never used the
operator before, said Aversa. "We've seen a nice increase, and it's
helping expand our database of agents," he said.
Friendly, whose main destinations are Mexico and the Caribbean
but which also offers Hawaii, Tahiti, the mainland U.S. and other
destinations, has been planning its technological improvements for
the last two years. "It's a large investment for an operator, and
it meant revamping the way we operate, such as the way we load
contracts onto our system," Aversa said.
At the same time it is taking the leap onto the CRS, Friendly
developed a presence on the Web. Its Web site, www.friendly
holidays.com, accepts electronic bookings only from travel agents.
Agents register at the site using their Airlines Reporting Corp.
number and can book Friendly Holidays packages.
Consumers also can make an initial reservation through the Web
site, but they must tell the operator the name of their travel
agent. Friendly then notifies the agent, who takes over the
booking, Aversa said.
So far, the Web booking site has not generated many bookings, he
said. "It's used by people searching for information more than
anything else," he said. "But we've got to get into this because
the Internet will be used more and more. I can see that by watching
my 4-year-old son play with his computer." Ultimately, electronic
bookings promise huge savings to tour operators, he said.
Some travel agents who still are apprehensive about electronic
reservations call the operator after making a booking through the
CRS to make sure that it went through. And for multiple destination
itineraries, such as Hawaii or Central and South America, where
travelers tend to hop from island to island or from city to city,
electronic bookings are not as easy to make as telephone bookings,
he conceded.
However, Aversa said, within the coming months, he expects
multiple-destination itineraries to become a much easier product to
book through the CRS.