West Midlands Co-op Travel has announced it has selected Comtec, the retail travel industry’s leading agency software provider, to power its new website.
The company is the largest independent travel agent in the West Midlands region, with 22 high street branches and a call centre.

The agreement will see Comtec incorporating the engines behind its new bookable online flights solution - of which West Midlands Co-op Travel is the first customer - and established bookable online package holiday web system into www.co-optraveldirect.com, to enable the Co-op Travel’s customers to book from millions of package holidays, and flights from low-cost, charter and scheduled carriers.

Comtec’s software will also enable West Midlands Co-op Travel’s customers to access their holiday itineraries or make payments online, by phone or in any branch.

All booking information from the website is automatically loaded into West Midlands Co-op Travel’s back office booking engine, Comtec’s market-leading TravelCat system, wiping out the need for re-keying data.

Geoff Hurmson, West Midlands Co-op general manager travel said: “Incremental business is our key objective, and this deal with Comtec creates a virtual agency, where customers can search and book holidays.

“Our site already receives 100,000 unique visitors each month, and we know that we lose many of these people because they need to call to complete their bookings. We’re expecting Comtec’s solution to turn these casual browsers into customers.”

Richard Turner, Comtec sales and marketing director added: “Our flights engine addresses the industry’s requirement for independent holiday bookings, and we’re confident the system will prove essential to many other agents’ growth in the future. West Midlands Co-op Travel is an exciting win for us.”

Comtec’s online flights solution enables agents to source and book UK originating flights from charter, scheduled, low-cost, consolidator and web-fare providers - providing retailers with access to millions of fare options.

Comtec’s online package holiday web system provides multi-operator search and booking capabilities allowing agents to offer up-to-the-minute holiday searches, availability checks and reservations with over 50 of the UK’s major operators through their websites. The system allows users to compare operators’ at a glance, and to complete bookings more quickly, through functionality including the option to quote fully-inclusive holiday prices and show e-brochure pages for selected holidays.
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