e-destinACCESS: The Destination Services Technology Solution

DID YOU KNOW THAT: Each month 250,000 people search for a “Meet & Greet” provider, 750,000 people search for an airport transfer provider, and almost 2 million people search for team-building providers via Google?

The statistics are alarming, and the consensus seems to be that the role of the local DMC has been depreciated in light of consumer trends and the emergence of global DMC giants that now have the resources, the technology, and the brand to capture a larger market share.

85% of all destination services are purchased without the help of a DMC. Why are individuals gravitating towards this “Do-it-Yourself” approach to event planning? Why don't they simply call the local DMC?

Regardless of the provided hypothetical explanations for this recent change, companies like Kuoni Destination Management are quite aware of these developments and have started to sell destination services via 95 Swiss Rail retail Offices through Kuoni Connect.

According to American Express and MPI's report FutureWatch, the “DIY” market has a value of $100 Billion in the U.S. alone - we estimate this to be well over $300 billion worldwide. And, as aforementioned, ALL of that business is bypassing traditional DMCs, into the coffers of the large DMC giants, your true retail DMC competition or alternatively, transferred to private “DIY” planners.

e-DMC.com is designed to give individual DMCs the opportunity to compete in the growing “DIY” market. This system, directly accessed from our website, accomplishes even the most complex elements of any program including, managing Arrivals and Departures in a matter of minutes, complete with vehicle schedules, online flight updates, and departure notices delivered via text messages and email. Our free web-based tool is designed to save you both time and money!

We are looking for DMCs who are interested in expanding their businesses and receiving incremental revenue from this huge market. We are also appealing to those DMCs just wanting to preserve and keep their businesses intact.

Gain a competitive advantage by using our destin technology that is, the backbone of e-DMC.com, to host your retail tariff on-line via a proprietary database with secure log-ins for your customers. No more business will be lost because you were busy operating programs and couldn't respond to that RFP in time. You have the local expertise. We have the platform and tens of thousands of planners at your disposal!

e-transportation, as one feature of many integral to our technology, allows you to run your group manifest and view transportation companies’ net published pricing right on your screen: no calls to make, no waiting on hold, no waiting on proposals to be sent. All of the information is right in front of you. Choose the preferred supplier-CLICK…and a purchase order is sent directly to the supplier. Talk about being connected!

“Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time” (Arnold H. Glasgow). Our destin technology is “the right way.” Today is “the right time.” We have the recipe for success, and it is available to all DMCs and event planners looking to revamp their businesses.

Click here to request an online demo/meeting. Demo our destin technology! Get connected with e-transportation. For more information regarding e-dA and our e-DMC product, please visit our websites at www.e-DMC.com and www.e-destinACCESS.com or contact us at press@e-dmc.com.

Posted by Flora Barron, Internet and Social Marketing Coordinator.

e-destinACCESS’ newest products eliminate the inefficient, conventional manual processes currently used by destination management companies (DMCs). Since the arrival of the internet, we have been waiting to introduce change in an otherwise stagnant industry.

In recent history, there has been few occasions that new technology has been introduced that has fundamentally transformed the way people do business and by and large, human society. There was the dawn of the telephone era, heralded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Almost 50 years later, we inaugurated wireless service between England and South Africa. “We speak across time and space,” read the Marconigram sent from Sir Edgar Walton, High Commissioner of South Africa, to General J.B.M. Hertzog, South Africa’s Prime Minister. These early developments, of course, precipitated the invention of the internet and subsequently, e-mail, both breakthroughs in technology that ushered in the digital information revolution.

Now, at e-dA, we believe we are again speaking across “time and space” with our software that puts the DMC tariff online and enables the user (meeting planners, travel companies and third party planners) to build their own programs, selecting the supplies and suppliers while also comparing prices. On par with other industries that have changed their business models to acquiesce to the digital age, our e-DMC product promises to reinvent the travel and hospitality industries.

The days of the RFP and RFI are long gone and yet in the travel industry, they are a standard. “RFP is an early stage in a procurement process, issuing an invitation for suppliers, often through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific commodity or service” (Wikipedia). Although meeting planners and travel companies have come to rely on these methods to build their event programs, in light of technological changes, they are quite antiquated. Your time is being wasted, and your time is money. The bidding process implies that we have time at our disposal to spend waiting for a bid. When buying an airline ticket online is an instantaneous and easy transaction, why should DMC services be any different?

Online Distribution of Destination Services is fast becoming a hot topic for DMCs. With players like Kuoni Connect and MaXvantage (an alliance of American Express Business Travel & Maritz Travel) going after the marketplace, currently valued at $100 Billion in the U.S. alone, individual DMCs will find it increasingly hard to compete in the online space. With e-DMC, every DMC can swiftly and thus competitively market its goods and services, and from a broader perspective, level the playing field with larger competitors.

The structure that RFP brings to the procurement decision, once sound, is know buckling under the pressure of technological advancement.

Steward Brand, founder of the Global Business Network infamously stated, “Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.” Our e-DMC product is paving the way for a new path in the travel industry.

We invite you to participate in this much anticipated and long overdue modernization of DMC services. For more information regarding e-dA and our e-DMC product, please visit our websites at www.e-DMC.com and www.e-destinACCESS.com or contact us at press@e-dmc.com.

Posted by Flora Barron, Internet and Social Marketing Coordinator.