You’re a PM at Agoda. Should we build a dedicated portal for travel agents?

Do we have any feedback from travel agents regarding the current mode of commincation and challenged faced by them? Yes, it is difficult for them to reach and do agent level bookings from the app

What is the objective behing this travel agent portal?

User acquisition

User engagement

Monetization

User feedback also suggest there is lot of friction in the current communication mode through email/ chat. Thet also feel havin an option in the app to do agent level bookings would be moch more efficient

Competitor offering -

Few competitors do have an option to login as an agent and some have agent portal as well where the agents can do the bookings on behalf of their clients and travel agents find that feature very useful

Pros -

Travel agents still dominate -
- Group booking
- Elderly booking
- People travelling from villages with low tech savviness
Bookings through travel agents -
- Have high basket size
- High booking value
- High repeat rate ( in case of a favourable experience)
Tapping the acquisition beyong paid digital marketing
Competitors like Booking.com, Expedia, etc. already have a separate agent portal

Cons -

Huge engineering b/w, hence upfront cost
Time to launch might be delayed

In my opinion, we should build this dedicated portal for travel agents to tap this B2B2C segment where the average order value is high, with high repeat booking rate and it paves the way for tapping the non digital customers. Moreover, not building this feature will act as a deterrent for the travel agents as few competitors already have this offering and they might prefer to go to those platforms.

High level features -

Agent login
Client level booking visibility
Group booking facility
Faster issue resolution process (in case of cancellations, returns, etc.)
AI enabled onboarding support and itinerary creation based on user needs
Commission tracking and reporting
Credit limit or deposit wallet facility

Metrics to track -

% new users
# orders per user per day/ week/ month
% group bookings
WAU/ MAU
% repeat user bookings
Avg order value
Revenue from commission
Agent NPS

TO summarise, Agode should invest in building this dedicated agent portal to tap to the B2B2C segment where aoverage order value and return booking rate is high, which will bring in additional revenue for Agoda in form of comminssions, while at the same time position it at par with its comepetitors.