Concorde SmartFares and Galileo announce major new initiative

Concorde SmartFares, a leading source of air fares for Australia’s travel agents, has joined with major GDS Galileo to provide one of the biggest productivity improvements experienced by agents in the southern hemisphere. 

The enhanced SmartFares system now incorporates an online booking engine which will provide instant confirmation of bookings and validation of air fare conditions when Galileo agents book and ticket through Concorde, via the internet.

Agents can save up to 20 minutes per booking, as SmartFares now eliminates the requirement for Galileo consultants to manually check fare availability and conditions when creating a PNR.

And because the confirmation process is now automated, it also eliminates the possibility of mistakes being made by consultants as they manually produce PNRs – potentially saving even more time by eliminating the requirement for corrections.

“The Concorde Group is a major part of the travel industry infrastructure in this country,” said Concorde Group Chief Executive Mr Peter Lacaze. “The initiatives we have announced today represent a major advance not only for SmartFares and Galileo, but for travel agency productivity and profitability.

“Until now, SmartFares has provided the most comprehensive list of fares and conditions in the Australian market - but agents still needed to confirm the availability of each fare and its conditions,” said Mr Lacaze. “It currently takes an average 20-25 minutes for a travel agent to identify a fare then confirm its availability and verify its conditions.

“Now Galileo agents can conduct a fare search, then make a booking and queue for ticketing in one seamless process via SmartFares on our website. Agents retain ownership of the PNR, retain their segment booking rebate and – if they ticket immediately via Concorde SmartFares – the airfare and conditions will be guaranteed.”

Vice President South Pacific of Galileo, Mr John Guscic, said the new partnership between Galileo and Concorde SmartFares represented a major advance not only in travel technology but in agency economics.

“This also represents an exclusive advance for Galileo in the Australian market, and another example of our commitment to provide, and our ability to deliver, the most efficient and effective booking channel for our partner agents.”

Concorde and Galileo will conduct a series of training workshops for all Galileo agents around Australia, commencing in Sydney on 24 November, 2003.