Switchfly, the travel technology company, has unveiled a suite of business-to-business (B2B) tools for travel brands to provide semi-personalized experiences to travelers. The tools take the fast-growing company beyond its traditional core business of packaging and loyalty points management.
One of the new suites is Air, a tool for airlines to sell first-party ancillaries -- not just third-party ancillaries, as before -- plus branded fares, revenue-managed seats, and other products directly.
Airlines can use the white-label suite to access the inventory in their reservation systems and sell to travelers via their web or mobile channels, bypassing third-parties like the global distribution systems.
For instance, United used early versions of the Switchfly Air suite's products for selling third-party ancillaries and managing loyalty.
It enabled hotel and car awards for airline miles and cash-to-mile conversion rates based on a passengers customer relationship management database score and existing segmentation rules in its MileagePlus frequent flier program. United credits Switchfly's suite for a double-digit, year-on-year growth in hotel and car redemption via its frequent flier program.
Fast growth
Air and the other new solutions come on the heels of a busy 2015 for Switchfly, when its employee and contractor total doubled to 319. To adapt, the company's moving to a new office in San Francisco. Job changes led to a new chief financial officer, new chief technology officer, and a new chief commercial officer, too.
The startup is estimated to have raised $34.8 million, to date, but hasn't announced a funding round since a Series C in 2012.
Another major travel suite released today is Switchfly Hotel, a merchandising tool for ancillaries that claims to include online travel agency rate-parity functionality, loyalty program integration, and revenue-managed pricing by segmentation.
Meanwhile, aimed at the call centers of more than 5,000 agencies with access to its platform, Switchfly Agency allows any brand to offer flights, hotels, car rentals, insurance and activities, either as stand-alone products or bundled packages – all under the client’s unique brand. For instance, it has inventory from more than 200,000 hotels available for booking through its platform.
The Air suite is not just for airlines. Agencies can use it to connect to global distribution system inventory.
A separate new Agency suite also offers more than 10,000 activities for upsell or as part of a package.
Looking ahead to 2017 and 2018, Switchfly plans to unveil a fresh mobile platform, a more robust hotel e-commerce solution, and a full-featured travel data analytics solution.
As of today its premium price software-as-a-service platform aims to deliver travel search/booking, loyalty program engagement, and ancillary merchandising solutions are used by many major airlines (such as American, JetBlue, LAN, Lufthansa, and United), and many major hotel chains (such as InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott), travel agency brands (such as American Express and FlightCentre), and other companies.
Earlier: Mid-tier airlines can now add merchandising to their sites via Farelogix and Switchfly