Eliminate Agent Payment Concerns with the Global Agent Commission System

May 24, 2011

‘A global travel agent network is essential to keeping rooms filled and generating better revenue’. No hotelier, worth his salt, will disagree. Most of you will even agree that paying anywhere between 10 to 25 dollars to wire transfer the commission to your travel agent is ridiculous. If you are sending him a bulk payment for 5 or 10 room booking, the cost to transfer the commission maybe digestible but for every booking, the cost is too high.

Since scrapping your global travel agent network is not an option, how can you reduce costs while maintaining your network?

Here are 3 options you can consider to eliminates your agent payment concerns:

The first option is rather obvious and you have most probably already incorporated this cost reducing option. Locate a bank that charges you the lowest wire transfer rate to ensure that you pay the lowest possible commission transfer fee. This is a viable option but it still means that you pay at least 10 dollars for every international wire transfer.

The second, setup an agreement with your travel agents, wherein you pay them once a set number of rooms are booked. By bulk paying the commission, you reduce the amount spent on wire transferring the commission. However, getting agents to agree to the delay in payment will be near impossible. In fact, trying to setup such an agreement may affect your currently pleasant hotel-agent relationship negatively, to the point of costing you an agent or two.

The third and best option is to use a Global Agent Commission Payment System to pay the agents on your travel network. A Global Agent Commission Payment System is a comprehensive commission processing service that streamlines the payment process and makes it easier for you to pay commissions to globally situated travel agents. It also enables you to keep track of the funds flowing through this channel. The Global Agent Commission Payment System eliminates concerns such as ‘how to settle commission payments, currency conversions etc’ that often are barriers to your hotel's growth. You can make payments in a wide range of currencies through the global network without worrying about conversion rates. And, you can even settle commissions on a weekly basis.

As a ResAvenue allied hotel, you do not need to setup your own Global Agent Commission Payment System or look for a third party commission processing service. When you sign up for the Global Distribution System (GDS) or Internet Distribution System (IDS), you can opt for the Global Agent Commission Payment System feature, wherein you pay just 2$ per commission as opposed to the 10 to 45$ for a wire transfer. If you are already using the GDS* to promote your room inventory, you can contact a ResAvenue marketing representative to activate the Global Agent Commission Payment System feature.

To summarize, the Global Agent Commission Payment System not only accelerates the commission payment process and reduces costs but also eliminates many of the agent payment concerns that you face.

* Please note, the global agent commission payment system is only available with a ResAvenue GDS connection.

Real Time Payment Processing
Single Window Interface Management
Extensive Distribution Network
Zero Setup Cost
Seamless GDS and IDS connectivity