Online travel company, Hotelbeds Group, has unveiled a global strategy for its retail travel agent division which will see its legacy brands – TravelBound, TravelCube and GTA – consolidated under the Bedsonline brand.
“The news forms part of the Group’s mission to innovate in the bedbank sector and represents a major strategic milestone following the integration of Tourico Holidays and GTA into the Group in 2017,” Hotelbeds said.
Hotelbeds Group said it would work with customers of TravelBound, TravelCube and GTA to “begin to understand the benefits of moving onto Bedsonline’s booking platform over coming months”.
“These changes will be accompanied by a global refresh of the Bedsonline brand that will include a fresh new logo and brand identity that will more effectively support Bedsonline’s market-leading position and 
value proposition,” the OTA said.
The platform now offers travel agents globally access to competitive rates at over 170,000 hotels globally, 24,000 transfer routes and 18,000 activities, as well as 140,000 cars available for hire.
“It makes strategic and practical sense for us to continue to develop our travel agent proposition under one integrated global platform and brand,” said Carlos Muñoz, Managing Director Bedbank at Hotelbeds Group.
“The benefits from this move will help all our partners boost revenues and profits through improved functionality and increased opportunities to up-sell high-yielding complimentary travel services in addition to our accommodation offering.”
Alistair Rodger, Director of Retail Travel Agents at Hotelbeds Group, comments: “Since starting in this role almost one year ago, I’ve been consulting endlessly with our travel agent customers all around the globe. Time and again, the feedback about the Bedsonline platform has made taking this decision easy – due to its superior functionality – but we’re looking to continue to improve the experience still further, beyond the booking platform itself, by establishing a truly 360-degree proposition to fully support the growth of our travel agent partners.
Rodger said that HotelsBeds Group would soon be hosting a series of events and workshops globally to present the new enhanced offering
“We are committed to innovating the travel technology space for travel agents and look forward to announcing further exciting developments in due course.”
The consolidation of the TravelBound, TravelCube and GTA retail brands under the Bedsonline brand will be rolled out in stages globally. The full migration of all markets globally has been scheduled in a staggered approach over the coming six months.
The Group said an extensive program is already underway to inform all existing clients of TravelBound, TravelCube and the GTA retail brand about the changes. Clients will have sufficient time to transition at their own pace and both workshops and technical support will be on hand to support a seamless migration.