2008-09-01

Travel Agents Adding Value with Zicasso.com

In a recent post titled “Travel Agents Finding Relevance Amidst Web 2.0″ I mentioned a site called Zicasso.com. In the post I misspelled the domain and within a day I received a message from the CEO Brian Tan informing me of the error. I corrected the mistake and thanked him for his attention to detail.

Zicasso has garnered some impressive media coverage over the last few months, so I contacted Brian and asked him about Zicasso and why he feels his site has become so popular. I wasn’t really interested in the technology but rather the philosophy behind the site, after all, I’ve been advocating for years that travel agents need to be focusing on niche travel and providing strong value-add by offering services and products that OTAs cannot provide. Zicasso seems to give select travel agents and tour operators a way to compete in the online space by specializing in specific destinations and classifications. This should, in theory, give the agents a strong advantage over their volume based (low margin) competitors.

When I asked Brian about where the idea for Zicasso came from, he explained that it was a direct result of his own travel planning frustrations. He said that when he did his research on-line for a specific destination, he often had to do a tremendous (sometimes overwhelming) amount of searching to find agents who specialized in the destination and could provide the kind of guidance he needed. Brian further explained that he created Zicasso to solve his own travel problems. Obviously he wasn’t alone in his frustrations. A recent Forrester research study found that “23% of US online leisure travelers express interest in using a good offline travel agency - if they could find one.”

So what makes Zicasso different from Tripology or some of the other travel matchmaking sites on the web? Firstly, Zicasso is invitation only, which means that the travel agents and tour operators who participate on the site are hand-picked by Zicasso for their quality and service. Secondly, Zicasso’s unique review and rating platform only allows travelers who have booked with (and through) Zicasso to review and rate agents on the system. “This protects the integrity of ratings and reviews; Zicasso is the only true community rating and review system of travel agents and tour operators.” explains Brian. Thirdly, the privacy of the traveler is always protected. The agents receive a request but are not provided with any personal profile information for the traveler. All the messaging is handled through an internal messaging system which ensures that the transaction is conducted through Zicasso (for tracking purposes) and keeps the traveler’s privacy secure.

As you might have guessed, Zicasso makes money when a traveler successfully transacts a sale with a specialist on the Zicasso platform. So, it makes sense to ensure the quality of the agents is high, the target audience is affluent and service oriented, and the trips are top notch. Zicasso seems to have all the right ingredients for making sure the discerning 4 or 5 star traveler gets the service they expect and is willing to pay the price for it. When you think about it, the concept is very simple and very effective. Use a tool like the Internet to streamline the search and communication process only without making the tool the medium for the delivery of service and put the service delivery back in the hands of qualified and service oriented humans.

For more information about Zicasso or to plan your next holiday, visit Zicasso.com.

This post was originally posted by Stephen Joyce @ Travel & Tourism Technology Trends.
> Read the original post here