In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Antonio Gonzalez Gil, Head of Sales at Price Agencies in the United States, and Juan Socas, Commercial Vice President of Price Travel Holding.
How does the company reach the United States?
At this event we are launching the brand here in the United States, which is already at a very mature stage throughout Latin America, with more than 12,000 travel agencies. We started more than a year ago in the US market and we have had a very good reception from travel agents regarding our value proposition.
This brand has a platform just for travel agents, where they can find hotels, flights, packages, tours, activities, and many other products in one place, with a lot of tools designed to make them efficient and effective in their daily work.
In the United States, we have a team that covers the entire country and we have a physical presence in Orlando, New York, Texas, as well as in Oklahoma and Washington. We have representatives for strategic accounts and representatives for support. Our channel is specialized only in travel agencies, which need a login to access the platform and can book their clients there.
What was the origin of PriceAgencies coming to the United States?
PriceAgencies is a project that was born in Mexico, then expanded to Colombia with great force, and is now in the US, and basically comes with a very solid value proposition for travel agents. On the one hand, it has the technology of a very modern platform where they find all the tools they need. Then, the product. We have more than 50,000 hotels contracted directly, with an offer of more than 500,000 properties on the platform where they get dynamic packages, with a very powerful product.
Service is a very important part, it is our gateway to value, and of course the income for travel agents in commissions is essential because we want them to have a good income. PriceAgencies also ensures that.
What countries do they reach?
We have 500,000 hotels worldwide right now and we sell those hotels in 1,200 destinations. Obviously, the Americas are well covered because it is where the company was born, and although there has always been a connection with beach hotels, resorts and all-inclusive hotels, the company has grown a lot and we are having strong contracts in city areas, airports and port hotels around the world. The leisure component is the strongest, but we have a platform where people can build whatever they want, they can buy each of the individual products or combine them, even package them.
What features distinguish you from the competition?
We have many benefits for travel agents, such as our loyalty points system. With each booking they make with us they accumulate points that can be used for their own bookings. We also have a system where agents receive commissions, and we are one of the providers that pays commissions the fastest, on a weekly basis.
In addition, we have a complete team dedicated to talking to and understanding the business of each of the agencies and seeing how we can adapt the offer to what they are looking for.
Do you have a head office and then representatives throughout the country?
Yes, we have an office in Orlando, but in the format we have, the representatives are covering each of the areas because we want to be local. We have had four representatives in four cities at the same time covering events simultaneously. We want each representative to know their area and be known by the advisors in the sector.
What are your expectations for PriceAgencies after this first year in the US?
This first year opened our eyes to the potential of the market and we exceeded expectations at the opening. This forced us to work much harder on the issue of agency affiliation.
And how do you promote yourself within the travel agent environment?
There are many tools, we participate in many trade shops and we have our event. In fact, this is the first event we do in the United States, but next year we plan to do four more events, starting in New York and Dallas. We also do a lot of work on the street visiting clients and there is a lot of immediate marketing effort to bring the product and the value proposition closer.
Why did you choose Miami to host this first event?
Miami was where we had our first affiliations, and it is very close to the Orlando office. This is where we had our first clients and that is why we chose it to start celebrating with the travel agent community.
Next year, while we will be doing the other events, we also want to do a series of fam trips to take travel agents to get to know each of the products we are selling. We are thinking of organizing at least four familiarization trips for next year.