KDS Portal

Travel Management Companies (TMCs) know that keeping pace with business travel requires a quick step and the right tools. That’s why online self-booking platforms are fast becoming a staple of the industry, and the technology in use is making a difference in the business travel world. Even so, many TMCs are settling for technology that has fallen behind the times and sometimes still employ manual processes as they look to maintain that human touch that has served them so well throughout the years.

A moving market

KDS has watched the travel industry change over the past 10 years, and has evolved its online travel booking solutions to reflect the growth of TMCs and the needs of the modern market. The industry has become a crowded and competitive space – where once the only alternative was external travel agencies, today TMCs must manage and contend with a vast range of easy to access online options that appear at face value to be fast and inexpensive.The reality is that booking online should be a process that is governed by in-house policies to help companies optimise their travel spend. Technology should support TMCs as they help their customers enforce these policies, providing in KDS Portal a “one-stop shop” for travelers while helping the company drive down its travel budget.

Enabling TMCs to Bring More Value to Customers

KDS Portal lets TMCs offer market-leading, traveler-oriented features that provide real added value to companies and users:

• Inventory display: Comprehensive schedule and fare information for available flights and trains, with an integrated display that shows airlines, LCCs and railways on the same screen.
• Booking guidance: The Visual Guilt and Lost Savings Reporting features can influence buying behavior, as they highlight price comparisons with the best negotiated fare, the lowest refundable fare, low cost carrier and rail options, and more.
• Approval Workflow: Critical to many companies. KDS offers a built in, fully automated approval system.
• Multiple Languages: Users can select their own interface language and currency.

Strengthening Brands with KDS Portal

KDS puts its clients’ branding first by providing customization to meet ”look and feel” requirements.

CWT Electronic Booking powered by KDS Portal

Multi-layered architecture and components further allow for the customization of the user interface. With these tools, KDS Professional Services can quickly analyze needs and develop Portal according to the clients’ brief. The result is a genuinely unique booking product which can be taken to market and used to strengthen the brand of the TMC - raising its profile in the industry and reinforcing the brand with travelers as they use the tool.

The KDS Advantage

KDS Portal gives TMCs the opportunity to put the top booking engine to work under their own name. Powered by KDS but branded by TMCs, KDS Portal is already helping TMCs bring thousands of travelers online.The solution creates state-of-the-art portals tailored to small and medium sized enterprises (SME), business travelers and leisure travelers. With an impressive,compressed time-to-market, KDS Portal delivers a rich set of functionality that is customized to meet specific business objectives. KDS Portal was designed to help TMCs not only service their customers, but also to help them achieve a new level of efficiency with their travel spend. With technology that promotes easy adoption, KDS Portal features a rich set of core functions:

• Built for worldwide markets, KDS Portal is a global solution which supports 11 languages and over 170 currencies.
• KDS Portal is an independent solution that integrates fully with all major GDS systems, allowing TMCs to change GDS with minimum impact on your customers.
• KDS Portal offers many direct links to LCCs as well as to global and local providers like Hertz, Pegasus, and rail companies.
• KDS Portal allows travelers to book their travel online directly and easily with access to the best and richest choices in air, rail, hotel and car. Meanwhile, relevant information is automatically pushed to users according to the company policy.
• KDS Portal comes with an administration facility that allows the set up of company policies and display settings. This is a graphical, web based tool that allows for quick integration of additional companies onto an existing roster of corporates using the system.

KDS Professional Services: The race to market

Of course, technology is only part of the package: speed is also of the essence, a fact that KDS Professional Services understands as it supports a transition to KDS. Professional Services are focused on business goals from the early project stages through the final implementation and can get a new TMC Portal up and running within six weeks. With help from Professional Services, TMCs can quickly realize key benefits as they bring customers onto the platform:

• Minimized implementation costs thanks to a quick installation pack;
• Support for managing multi-level travel policies, using an engine specifically designed for mid-size air travel budgets;
• No software to maintain or update;
• Access to CAT35 Fares and Built in Fee Display.

Hosted solution (ASP) for fast deployment – KDS Hosting Services

As a travel e-procurement Application Service Provider KDS allows TMCs to focus on what they do best: their core business. KDS Hosting Services handles the technology nuts and bolts. KDS not only owns the hardware and the network connections to GDSs and direct suppliers, it also has experts on-site to maintain and continuously enhance client applications. KDS Hosting Services delivers a 24/7 highly reliable service based on a secure and scalable hardware and software environment. This means faster deployment and ongoing transparent update and maintenance of web-based travel services.