Boomerang Back With South Pacific Boost
Earlier this summer, Boomerang Tours raised its competitive game with the debut of a new world product web site, giving users a clever homepage interface that immediately establishes vacation priorities.
Do you want a wildlife adventure, a foreign culture experience or to just stroll on a perfect, exotic beach? The new site gets to the heart of the matter quickly, and is accompanied by a world map that highlights Boomerang program areas with a zoomed-in peek at the chosen region.
That is, users are invited to determine their holiday intentions, and then take a look at where they might want their vacation to happen. All decision making should be such fun.
Now, Boomerang has added some new muscle to the South Pacific side of its website. Boomerang has programs for Fiji, Australia and New Zealand on the flipside of the planet, and these relatively distant destinations can be challenging for product-seeking agents who aren’t specialists, says Michael Mullin, the director of sales and marketing for both Boomerang and Exotik Tours.
“They have to rely more on us, the tour operators, to provide their clients with more detailed information,” said Mullin – hence the need for devoting more resources to supporting programs in the region down under.
The South Pacific side of the Boomerang website is now being powered by a new partner — Pacific Destinations Ltd. of Auckland, NZ. The new technology is an in-house system linked directly to the local offices in Auckland, Sydney and Nadi, Fiji.
This has broadened the product scope for Boomerang in the South Pacific zone and enabled a much faster response to client inquiries by Canadian travel agents.
“The length of time will depend on the type of itinerary required. A basic itinerary can be created in less than 15 minutes, and a more complicated customized itinerary may take an hour or two, dependent on our call volumes,” says David Boigne, VP of specialty products for Boomerang Tours and Exotik Tours, both under TravelBrands.
A selection of itineraries will be created for the client using direct access/live inventory jointly, thus improving the booking processes at Boomerang Tours. “It’s a new era moving forward from a manual to an automatic system,” said Boigne.
Mullin was equally enthused, noting that the quicker itinerary response times will pay dividends in retaining clients who are waiting for information, and keep them from moving on to other alternatives. “We’re looking at a big increase in sales,” he said.
With Pacific Destinations now on board, the available programs available for booking have expanded in number, and in depth. For instance, Lady Elliot Island is a much less commercialized part of the Great Barrier Reef, offering perfect sand beaches and surrounding coral seas for snorkeling and diving. A five-night stay there is on offer.
A similar business model is being contemplated for access by the many other destinations in the Boomerang/Exotik portfolio in the near future, perhaps in 2016, says the company.
“But this is a good start as the South Pacific always offers more choices and can at times be overwhelming to the travel agent,” said Boigne. “Our new technology will simplify and speed up the process.”
The official launch of the Boomerang website partnership with Pacific Destinations is on Sept. 7, but it is being made available for agent support now.
(https://www.travelpress.com/subscription/IDEA/100415_082415_ctp)
