e-destinACCESS: The Destination Services Technology Solution

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.