OTN is building its proprietary technology specifically for its members—connecting client management, booking reporting, trips, rewards, supplier marketing and destination intelligence in one ecosystem.
OASIS Travel Network (OTN) is rapidly expanding Freedom, its proprietary CRM and business management platform, with an ambitious objective: to build the travel industry’s most comprehensive CRM specifically for OTN members and the way they run their businesses.
Freedom is already operational and in the hands of OTN members, with many of the project’s most ambitious capabilities already live. OTN is now completing additional integrations across Freedom, its redesigned Intranet, its award-winning Chairman’s Club member rewards and supplier marketing program, and its growing destination and supplier content.
The project is well ahead of schedule, with OTN hoping to have many of those integrations completed ahead of its flagship conference in Lisbon next month.
“After more than four decades in this industry, I’ve seen technology make certain parts of selling travel easier while adding layers of administrative work everywhere else,” said Lee Smolinski, Chairman and CEO of OASIS Travel Network. “We started with a very basic question: Why should a travel professional manually enter information that already exists in a supplier confirmation? From there, the vision for Freedom became much bigger.”
Built for OTN Members
Rather than requiring members to adapt their businesses to legacy technology, OTN is developing Freedom around the way its members actually work and the way their clients actually travel.
Members can forward supplier confirmations directly to Freedom. The platform reads the information, identifies the booking and prepares it for the member to review and report.
Freedom is also bringing together client profiles, bookings, payments, final-payment information, documents and complete Trips—including travel components that may not generate commission but remain important parts of the client journey.
“Gone are the clunky, ’70s-era systems built around everything but the travel professional and their client,” Smolinski said. “Our philosophy is the opposite: start with our members, start with their clients, and build the technology around them.”
Connecting Technology to Chairman’s Club Rewards
A key differentiator is Freedom’s integration with OTN’s Chairman’s Club, the network’s award-winning member rewards and supplier marketing program.
Eligible reported business earns Chairman’s Club points based on OTN’s preferred supplier relationships and promotional programs, connecting members’ everyday sales activity directly with rewards, recognition and OTN events.
This allows Freedom to go beyond simply storing client and booking information. The platform connects the member’s business activity with OTN’s preferred supplier strategy, marketing initiatives and rewards program.
“Chairman’s Club has become an important part of how we recognize and reward our members while supporting the supplier relationships that are important to OTN,” Smolinski said. “Integrating that program into the technology our members use every day brings those pieces together in a way that makes sense.”
Bringing Supplier Marketing Closer to the Sale
OTN is simultaneously transforming its Intranet and supplier marketing infrastructure, allowing information to move dynamically across the network’s technology ecosystem.
OTN-exclusive promotions, Signature promotions and general supplier promotions are being centralized and updated automatically, while supplier information, hotel programs, learning opportunities, events and other resources are becoming easier for members to find and use.
OTN’s new Destination Hub takes that strategy another step forward, organizing destination-specific selling information, preferred partners, hotels, current promotions, learning opportunities and industry contacts in one place.
“The opportunity is much bigger than building another CRM,” Smolinski said. “We’re connecting the tools our members use to manage their businesses with the supplier relationships, rewards, promotions and information that can help them sell more effectively. The goal is fewer systems, less administration and better information at the point where our members actually need it.”
Built With OTN Members, Not Just for Them
Perhaps the most distinctive element of Freedom’s development is the direct involvement of the people who use it every day: OTN members.
Rather than developing the platform in isolation and waiting for a future release, OTN is deploying functionality while members actively use Freedom, gathering feedback and continually improving the platform.
Members identify gaps, suggest features and point out processes that take too many steps. OTN then evaluates, develops and deploys improvements—in some cases within days.
“Some of the best ideas have come directly from our members using Freedom in the real world,” Smolinski said. “We’re building Freedom for them, but just as importantly, we’re building it with them. They aren’t simply using our CRM. They’re helping us build it.”
One Connected OTN Ecosystem
OTN’s vision extends well beyond a traditional CRM.
Freedom and the redesigned OTN Intranet are being developed as parts of one connected ecosystem encompassing clients, bookings, trips, payments, documents, supplier relationships, promotions, rewards, learning, destination information and other tools members use to operate and grow their businesses.
Many of those capabilities are already operational. Additional integrations are being completed and deployed on an ongoing basis.
OTN’s objective is ambitious:
Build the travel industry’s best and most comprehensive CRM—front end, back end and everything in between.
“Technology should give travel professionals more of the one resource they can never replace: time,” Smolinski said. “Less duplication. Less administration. Fewer places to look. More time with clients. More time to sell. More freedom to run their businesses. The name Freedom has never seemed more appropriate.”
OTN expects to showcase the increasingly connected Freedom ecosystem at its flagship conference in Lisbon in October, while development and integration will continue as the platform evolves around the needs of OTN members.
ONE TEAM. ONE VISION.