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Symes focuses on products and productivity
Martin Symes, recently installed as vice president of marketing with Abacus International, is happy to be back at the heart of travel distribution.
Previously CEO and chairman of travel search engine Wego, and before that executive director, commercial for ZUJI, Symes says: "I see myself as a travel guy, rather than an online guy."
In his new role, Symes will seek "opportunities to drive change in the way travel is distributed".
Among those opportunities will be work to expand the range of content available for travel agents, which Symes believes is a critical issue if agents are to remain relevant as an unbiased source of advice and distribution of multiple products to comparison shoppers.
"Our GDS business has been predominantly focused on air, but there is a lot more we can do to expand content for agents."
Symes also believes there is ample room for increased productivity by agents, particularly in Asia where cheaper labour costs have tended to obscure the need for more cost-efficient operations.
"New cost pressures on travel agents are creating more demand for productivity tools and old arguments about cheap labour are less and less true," he said.
"Although this may be the less glamorous side of the business, it’s imperative that we provide agents with the tools to improve their productivity."
Abacus is also closely watching progress of the IATA-driven New Distribution Capability (NDC), a new communication standard between airlines and travel agents.
IATA this week launched an NDC blog, which it hopes will counter "considerable misinformation from some entrenched interests in current distribution standards" and will be a reference point "to correct the numerous myths and misinformation that have been introduced into the debate".
Symes says NDC has the potential to disrupt the way travel is distributed and needs to be "closely watched".
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