Partnerships and Revenue Opportunities
Enda Uhambo on May 15, 2016We are keen to partner with GDSs, TMCs, IT Companies or other Industry Actors to boost AirBooks business expansion. These partnerships may include commission based reseller agreements and sub-contracting of AirBooks services to local companies.
AirBooks subscription model opens up lots of opportunities for resellers with low customer acquisition upfront costs and no technical or sales level commitments. The product’s affordable pricing and online delivery make it easier to convince customers to buy.
Resellers will earn referral commissions on customer’s subscription fees, with commission rates aligned on reseller sales volumes.
The short term income may not be great, but you will end up earning a generous amount over the lifetime value of the customers who stay subscribed to the product. As new subscribers are brought into the revenue fold, resellers still earn revenues from the initial customers without having to invest in customer acquisition.
Other potential avenues for generating additional revenues are technical services: reports customization, software integration, training and implementation, business analysis, accounting consulting and more.
Let’s now comment on few aspects of online subscription and implications on our partnership concept.
Online Subscription based Delivery
AirBooks fully aligns with the major characteristics of online applications delivery:
- Self-serviced software - Pay-as-you-go with limited commitment for the Agency
Online subscription is not common practice for Mid & Back-Office system but AirBooks stands apart. This model has proved to be the best to accommodate our vision of a simplified Mid & Back-Office delivery, with lowered cost and full empowerment of travel agencies.
The Travel Agency is fully in charge of AirBooks subscription. Partners may come as sponsors, but not as the subscriber, nor the licensee.
AirBooks Licensee
The AirBooks Licensee will be a Travel Agency, Independent Consultant or any entity on whose behalf a subscription is made for AirBooks service. This individual or entity will be the sole AirBooks licensee, creating and storing content on AirBooks, with all pertaining nontransferable rights and obligations. Licensee and sponsor may be different entities.
AirBooks Data Ownership
As a licensee, the travel entity has complete ownership over the content created or stored on AirBooks. In case the entity wishes to have a copy of its data, it will have to be exported from AirBooks on XLS format.
A database backup is generated every day and kept on AirBooks servers for 7 days. Our teams will proceed to any restoration you may request on an active AirBooks account.
Unpaid AirBooks accounts that are inactive for a continuous period of 90 days will be terminated. In the event of such termination, all data associated with the account will be deleted.
Sponsoring scenarios
The most likely scenario for subscription payment is a payment by the subscribing agency. But travel agency business practices allow other cases.
- Mid & Back-Office are sometimes offered or subsidized by GDSs in the form of incentives based on sales volumes, to best-selling customers. GDSs may also seek a customer retention objective through this strategy when it can be a major differentiator against competition. - We also believe that Agents Consolidators acting as supplying agencies and relying on a commission share or super commission earning model, might find it worth to sponsor AirBooks subscription for non-IATA partner agencies to grow their consolidation business based on AirBooks amazing pricing and value proposition for non-IATAs.
Switching from 1 sponsor to another
The AirBooks licensee is free to switch from current GDS or Consolidator sponsorship to another without losing ownership on his data and the ability to interface AirBooks with new sponsor’s feeds.
Interface Lock Agreements
When the GDS or another 3 party travel processor is the Mid & Back-Office sponsor, it occurs that a commercial agreement between the sponsored agency and the other party includes a clause to import back-office items from the sponsor’s interface exclusively.
AirBooks also accommodates these types of deal, provided an Interface Lock Agreement between the agency and sponsor is sent to us.
This Agreement may be terminated by either party at any time. Interface Lock will be deactivated in AirBooks immediately upon reception of a termination notice from either party.
Interface Lock is subject to a monthly fee of USD 100 per agency.