A new Sydney-based travel platform that aims to connect travellers with “been-there” travel agents has been set up by “a long term marketer and entrepreneur with successes in various industries over his time including bicycle manufacturing and wholesaling”, according to company publicity.
The new platform, called Going.Expert, is currently inviting travel agents to register so they can be matched with clients wanting to travel.
Company publicity disseminated yesterday through AAP Medianet described Going.Expert as “Sydney based with global reach”.
“Going.Expert is initially being launched to the Australian traveller to find Australian travel agents who have ‘been-there’. The database has also been populated with US travel agents and therefore nearly ready to launch into that market. Whilst Going.Expert is a web-based platform, and mobile optimized, we are putting final touches on an ios APP. This should be available September.”
Rogan Carroll, creator of the new connection tool for travellers, is quoted as follows:
“Everyone has written off the travel agent, saying the Online Travel Agents or OTA (the big online booking platforms) are taking over and there’s no need for travel agents any more. Well that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Travellers are spending way too long researching their holiday travel online – sometimes it takes days or weeks and ends up costing more than having a travel agent do it for them. The traveller is shifting back to using a travel agent, at the rate of about 5% per year, given the issues that can occur by booking with an online travel agent such as: missing out on the uniqueness of a destination, poor timing on connecting flights, sub-standard hotels, lack of travel insurance, incorrect or no visa, and so on; things an OTA just can’t correct mid trip.
“The OTA’s are aggregating available flight, hotel and packaged holiday data from multiple sources, they aren’t planning a vacation for the individual.
“If you want to pick up a quick inflexible, impersonal holiday package then go ahead and use an OTA, and pray that nothing goes wrong during your trip.
“But if you want a holiday that will be memorable for every last organised detail, and have someone to back you up even when you’re away, then you better use a travel agent.”
The publicity states: “Going.Expert doesn’t sell travel and doesn’t compare prices, we simply put you, the Traveller, in touch with Travel Agents who have been where you are going. And it’s not putting you in-touch with the travel agency office either, this is about one-to-one connections with the actual travel agent who has been there. We currently have destination experts covering 78 countries and growing daily.”
The statement said Going.Expert is Free to use and has “ no annoying backend advertising – just a pure tool to connect you, the traveller, with the travel agent who knows all about the destination(s) you are travelling to.”
Carroll is described as “a long term marketer and entrepreneur with successes in various industries over his time including bicycle manufacturing and wholesaling; educational toy retail stores, and childcare centres in the US”.
Agents wishing to check it out can visit the website at www.Going.Expert
Source: eGlobal Edited by Peter Needham - 12 August 2016