A travel consolidator, Finchglow Travels, has teamed up with Ethiopian Airlines, Air Peace and Lufthansa to promote knowledge-sharing and advance technology through Artificial Intelligence (AI) among airlines and travel agencies.
In an industry engagement held in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, themed: “Winning with AI: The NDC and smarter retailing”, held for travel agents, the MD/CEO of Finchglow Travels Limited, Ezekiel Ikotun, said that technology adoption among airlines and travel agencies would boost the travel experience of travellers.
Ikotun said that Finchglow Travels which buys tickets from airlines in bulk and resell to other travel agencies, and that if the sub-agents are properly educated and adopt AI, it means they will serve the traveler better.
He said that working with the airline majors to preach AI adoption among the stakeholders, especially the agents, would make them to understand more about the business and serve their clients better.
Ikotun said: “So, we service everybody within the travel space. We buy from airlines in bulk and resell to other travel agencies. This is an ecosystem, meaning if the sub-agents are properly educated, that means they will serve the traveler better.
“Now, for the agents also, once they can serve better, they can have better businesses.
For those who are in our own ecosystem, that simply means they will know better about the business, and they can serve their customer better.
“In the past, we discovered that there’s been a lot of uneducated travel agents in the Nigerian space.
And part of the product that we offer is to ensure that all our travel agencies are better positioned in terms of awareness, in terms of capacity building.
“Most of them don’t even have the opportunity or the privilege to have this kind of gathering, if not for us coming up with it to bring all of these airlines together and other GDSs to be able to serve them better.”
Also speaking, Firiehiwot Mekonnen, the Country Manager, Ethiopian Airlines, said the airline would continue to support initiatives that boost airline travel in Nigeria, and support travellers, due to the love Nigerians have for the airline.
Mekonnen, who interacted with the travel agents, said that the airline would consider the comments and feedbacks presented at the engagement and work on them to strengthen their relationship.
Earlier, Abdulraman Adamu, Station Manager, Air Peace, and Chigozoe Nnaah, Account Manager, Lufthansa Airlines, Port Harcourt, had presented separate papers on NDC and AI, after which they answered questions from the travel agent.
The Travel agents who participated in the engagement said that it was timely and that the industry can only get better with the adoption of AI for speedy and smarter customer travel experience.
One of the participants, Oluremi Olusunde, MD/CEO, Realms Travels and Tours Limited, said the event was a learning curve to get renewed information in the travel industry.
