Report from Bangkok – PATA Travel Mart 2004: Galaxy Travel Distribution System Ltd., specialising in on-line global travel distribution systems for ground services, announced the introduction of Galaxy TBRS™…
Report from Bangkok – PATA Travel Mart 2004: Galaxy Travel Distribution System Ltd., specialising in on-line global travel distribution systems for ground services, announced the introduction of Galaxy TBRS™, an innovative Tourist Board Reservation System specially designed to assist national tourist organisations (NTOs) in capitalising on their own reservation potential, thus generating more income for tourism promotion for their respective regions. The announcement was made at PATA Travel Mart 2004 (PTM 2004), held from 22 – 24 September 2004, Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand.
Developed by Galaxy and marketed worldwide by Tourism in Action BV, Ltd, The Netherlands, Galaxy TBRS™ offers NTOs multi- product reservation capabilities for accommodations, packages, excursions, transfers and other products on a `pay per view basis`. This enables the NTO to sell products for its members in its own call and information centres AND to thrive on the internet, using one system, without the necessity of making any upfront investment in this usually expensive technology. Tourist organisations which employ Galaxy TBRS™ pay only a modest service fee when reservations actually materialise.
Mr. Tim Diets, Managing Partner of Tourism in Action, said For many years, tourist boards in Europe have struggled with expensive proprietary, non-scalable reservation technology. The industry environment today is such that NTOs are no longer richly funded by their local governments. They therefore need to capitalise on their local reservation potential in order to generate enough income to survive financially and fulfil their primary objective: marketing and promotion of, and information about their destination, in order to generate visitors.”
“With Galaxy TBRS™, we enable our NTO clients to play an important role on behalf of their member hotels AND save on labour costs at the same time, stated Diets. Already, more than 600 hotels in The Netherlands actively use the module, that is offered to them by the Tourist Boards of Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. In the near future we will extend the module with functionality for excursion providers and packages.
Diets went on to say, “With Galaxy TBRS™, NTOs throughout the Asia-Pacific region can also capitalise on their local reservation potential while simultaneously marketing and promoting their respective destinations. As a result, from today, we will be actively offering this unique reservation platform to all NTOs in the Asia-Pacific region.”
In the Asia-Pacific region, Galaxy and Tourism in Action will cooperatively market Galaxy TBRS™ through Galaxy’s National Marketing Companies (NMCs). These independently owned travel companies serve as the distribution, training and support centres for all of Galaxy’s on-line products. Galaxy drives its marketing globally via four regional Sales and Support offices located in Asia-Pacific, Middle East/Africa, North America, Latin America and Europe.
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