Magazine Issue: June, 2010
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A proactive approach to technology investment can no longer be underestimated, stresses CEO, Illusions Online Arabia, Faisal Memon, who explained to Claudio Saghbini about the company’s own award-winning products
TTG: Please give us a brief overview of Illusions Online Arabia.
For over a decade now, Illusions Online has been focusing on providing unique and customised technology solutions for the travel industry, more specifically for end-toend outbound and inbound tour operators and DMCs. We have been in Dubai since late 2002, and since then we have had fantastic feedback from the companies we’ve been working closely with, which include some of the biggest names in the region and internationally. The real culmination for us however was winning the World Travel Award (WTA) last year for the World’s Leading Travel Technology Provider 2009. That was the biggest highlight in the company’s history. And we have followed this success by winning this year as well – the prestigious WTA for the Middle East’s Leading Travel Technology Provider.
TTG: How can Illusions Online help tour operators and DMCs achieve their goals?
Our philosophy, and a big part of our vision, is to make sure that we are always ahead in technology. With this in mind, we use the latest technologies to enable the automation of travel companies and provide consumers with a simple and cost-effective way to book travel.
The idea is to enable all travel technology solutions under one roof, so that our clients can steer clear of operational complications and improve their high levels of service. What we bring to the table is automation across every function of the business – contracting, reservations, operations, accounts, sales and marketing, and planning and logistics – everything is connected. We are much more than just a reservation system. Our services include providing complete product and supplier management, client management including pricing and tariffs and Internet booking engines for B2B and B2C, dynamic packaging, CRM, XML/Web services integration capabilities with partners and suppliers, and an outstanding reporting and business intelligence framework.
"Customers don’t always
understand what sort of benefits
automation can bring to their
business."
All these enable our clients’ distribution of
their products to the travel trade and consumers
efficiently with contractual changes, offers,
and new products on sale – much, much faster
than ever before.
TTG: What are some of the challenges that
your company faces in the region?
One of the key challenges we face is that customers
don’t always understand what kind of
benefits automation can bring to their business.
In general there’s two kinds of companies we
come across – those which do not have any
automation at all (or which is far too basic),
and those which have automation but which
they are not able to change in line with new
trends and demands or new technologies.
Which ever the case, our aim is to help those
who do not provide real time and online services
to their customers, and who are looking
to get to this level of automation. Our product
allows our customers to run their business effectively
and still be able to distribute to customers
at minimum costs.
Traditionally the whole thing was manual.
But now more and more customers are demanding
better connectivity and real time
access to products. Business today is becoming
much more last-minute. Our clients
have a very small window to be able
to distribute those holidays, and so they
need to have online real time information
to succeed.
TTG: How has technology investment
changed over the years in the industry?
We are seeing a huge change in management
thinking when it comes to technology. If I go
back to 2006-07, investment in technology
was quite limited. I’m mainly referring to traditional
companies here in the region – those
family-run businesses which have been around
for a long time and ask why they should
spend money on technology if business is
already strong.
What we’re seeing though, is that people
are starting to appreciate the value of technology
– looking at technology as an investment
instead of a cost. Getting to that stage was a
big challenge for us.
Of course in this industry it’s all about
the people, skills, and entrepreneurs, but
technology makes people work smarter.
It allows you to give consumers the services
they are increasingly demanding. With Illusions Online technology, the biggest advantage is
that our clients are online immediately, 24/7
in real time. And our technology brings a huge
change to the business as well – above all it
alleviates staff of time, allowing them to work
on the more complex bookings.
TTG: How would you advise travel
professionals looking to invest more
in technology?
Automate, innovate or die! This may sound
harsh, but it’s absolutely true. It’s a reality.
And the sooner companies realise and accept
this, the sooner they won’t be just another
number. It’s all about automation and innovation – you’ve got to be different. If you are just
like any other company out there then why
would I come to you? Technology helps you
to achieve things beyond just a strong company
vision and quality staff.
"People are starting to
appreciate the value of technology
investment looking at technology
as an investment instead of
a cost. Getting to that stage was
a big challenge for us"
TTG: What are your overall plans for the
MENA region?
Well with regards to our latest version –
Illusions V12 – the client feedback both in the
region and globally tells us that it’s been absolutely
amazing so far. I think the amount of
functionality we have built in the platform has
been tremendous – about a million dollars investment
has gone into developing the latest
version of our product.
And the third quarter of this year is going to
be very exciting as well. Our focus so far has
been mainly on big organisations – we’ve realised
this and so what we are looking to do is add
a more ‘scaled-down’, ‘off-the-shelf’ platform
to allow smaller-sized enterprises to access
our similar technology. We want to take our
product to the masses at a fraction of the cost
so that we can allow these smaller companies
to enjoy the benefits of our technologies. That
is going to be a huge part of our plans for later
this year. There is also another large project
we are working on but we will announce
that closer to the time of launch – watch
this space!
Source: www.ttgmena.com
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TTG - Middle East, Automation for the people
