BigCommerce teamed up with Ubique Digital to launch BigTravel – a solution designed to simplify travel industry operations for travel agents by:
- Providing a unified interface for managing customer inquiries and bookings across channels.
- Automating routine tasks so agents can focus on high-value customer interactions.
- Simplifying the process of creating custom travel packages through an intuitive interface.
BigTravel allows travel agents to create mobile storefronts with advanced search, browse, and booking capabilities, and offer personalized experiences and targeted promotions to customers.
BigCommerce wrote in its announcement:
“Travel agencies and aggregators influence much of the industry’s revenue, but they often lack the business and tech tooling to quickly and easily integrate with these fragmented systems and complex booking processes. Each agency has different needs, different size and scale, and BigTravel allows them to adapt the solution according to their needs.”
Mark Adams, senior VP and general manager of EMEA at BigCommerce, said:
“Going on holiday is supposed to be a fun experience, but shopping for flights, hotels, rental cars and all the other services needed for a trip requires visits to dozens of different websites for all those various providers. BigTravel will make it easier and significantly faster for travel agencies to deliver a unified customer experience that takes the pain out of planning a trip.”
My First Thought: BigCommerce entering the travel space feels like a “side quest” that'll distract from its “main quest” — in the words of Shopify leadership. Should they be spreading themselves thinner right now across multiple industries? Or instead be dialing in on retail e-commerce for Enterprise stores?
My Second Thought: Maybe it's smart for BigCommerce to create new services and serve different markets using its existing infrastructure, storefront architecture, and content editor. There's nothing wrong with a pivot. Although someone's already using the name “BigTravel.”
Side quest or intelligent pivot? I haven't quite decided yet. What do you think?