Celebrating four decades in business this month, the Flight Centre team led by founder Graham 'Skroo' Turner, has shared its plans for 'Flight Centre Brand 4.0' (FCB 4.0), which it calls an "industry-first blended ecosystem of technology and traditional booking systems."
At the heart of FCB 4.0 is Flight Centre's 'omni-retailing' concept that ties together the different ways Flight Centre clients book travel: in-store, on mobile or desktop, over the phone or via the Flight Centre app.
The cornerstone of the omni-retailing platform is Flight Centre's new global website with "world-class booking functionality." The soon-to-launch site will showcase a standardized global brand, with regional and in-store functionality for bookable travel products, pricing, and promotion.
"We've used the past two years to right-size the business and reinvent Flight Centre after taking stock of our future ambitions. Without leaving our core assets behind, we're moving from a world of complexity to one of simplicity for our customers and consultants," says Turner.
"As the world turns their attention to travel once more, we're improving the value and expertise of our consultants who will operate in a face-to-face environment, supported by the most sophisticated of online platforms."
The goal of the FCB 4.0 model is to seamlessly connect the consultant and the customer, in both the physical and online environment, with features including:
-- Dynamic and globalized pricing strategy
-- Consistent Flight Centre client experience no matter the location
-- Helio, an intuitive booking system with automated best deal search
-- CustomerOne, a refined customer sales management tool
-- Single view display of all booking data of the end-to-end journey for both client and consultant.
"The vision of the Flight Centre business has remained the same: to open up the world for those who want to see," says Flight Centre's Global Managing Director, Andrew Stark.
"At the same time, the role of the consultant has evolved, and customer expectations have shifted as they're after more streamlined and intuitive processes for their bookings, online and in-store."
Stark says the new platform features a single booking portal that customers and consultants can access seamlessly, whether the booking is made in-store or online. He says the new model will see online sales increase to 40% of total transactional value by 2025.
Flight Centre says it see changes coming to the travel industry as customers put regional and global sustainability top of mind when booking holidays.
"To meet this evolving customer demand, Flight Centre Travel Group's booking platforms have also been designed to inform and help clients make decisions around their travel options, providing CO2 reporting and carbon offsetting solutions that contribute to positive climate action," says Stark.
"Our suppliers are also taking positive steps to reduce their impact, with many of our preferred partners having implemented comprehensive environmental and broader Corporate Social Responsibility strategies."
The Flight Centre business is represented by 3,000 people in 450 locations around the world, and notes that over 40 years it has weathered natural disasters, pandemics, and aviation crises.
"The Flight Centre people are our biggest asset and our biggest differentiator in the global market," says Turner.
"This is the essential difference between us and our competitors in the online travel agency space. We look forward to organizing many more million flights and trips, both with our customers and our consultants truly co-captaining the Flight Centre journey together for the first time."
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