Travel 2 enters online short-breaks arena

Long haul specialist Travel 2 has entered the European city breaks market with a new online programme

The Cendant-owned operator is utilising newly-introduced online dynamic packaging capability to offer 35 destinations

The new programme will make flight and hotel combinations available to agents via the www.travel2.com and www.travel4.com websites, with 2, 3, 4 and 5 star properties available in each city.

Agents are able to select from a range of scheduled flights and specially-chosen accommodation, with all featured hotels in the key locations of each city. Only flights and hotels with availability are shown.

Once agents have chosen the preferred flights and hotel a total package price is quoted. At no stage are the individual trip components priced separately, the company says, enabling Travel 2 to use IT air fares and merchant rate hotel prices.

More destinations will be added to the 35 short-break cities initially offered. The current range includes Barcelona, Budapest, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo, Prague and Valencia.

Travel 2 sales director Dave Holland said: “The European city breaks programme represents two significant steps forward for Travel 2 – a brand new choice of destinations plus the introduction of fast, easy-to-use dynamic packaging technology.

“It’s available to agents 24 hours a day, seven days a week via our website. We also have a comprehensive European city break programme available to agents calling our reservations centre.”

He added: “The featured hotels in our city breaks programme are of a good quality and well located  with an easy to use mapping facility ensuring that you can select the ideal location for your customer.

“Additionally, the system only offers flights and hotels with availability, providing instant confirmation. Agents and clients are spared the time-consuming process of wading through a long list of properties; we’ve already done this for them and selected the most appropriate hotels for their needs.”

Agents also have the flexibility to set the level of their own earnings from city break bookings. All transactions are instantly confirmed, with automated ticketing and a follow-up email confirmation provided to the agent.

“This ensures that agents have access to the best possible prices, allowing them to compete strongly with consumer-facing websites and direct-sell operators,” claimed Holland.

Report by Phil Davies