TRADE TALK 17 Angaga Resort Angaga Resort Water Bungalow Splendid… Just Splendid Making life easier for trade partners around the globe, Splendid Asia leverages the latest technologies Splendid Asia is a 10-yearold Maldives-based travel agency with an impressive track record among its suppliers and clients. In the past years Splendid Asia has developed a wide range of services to cater emerging needs at any point. We asked Managing Director Abdulla Naseer to tell us more… Throughout the years we have been highly reputed for providing outstanding services in areas such as hotel and resort booking, group bookings, charter operations and other DMC services. What makes Splendid Asia stand out in the crowd? Today we are proudly celebrating a decade of providing holiday travel service, while in the course of the period introducing travel technology into the local market. Splendid Asia has been recognized locally as one of the first parties to introduce a simplified system of handling bookings. This online system enables convenience in confirmations along with billing. This introduction is a milestone for the company because of the value it created with the speed of service and the ease internally to handle requests. Some of the highlights of our online booking system include the ability to create real time confirmation and invoice for a booking, generate secured payment gateway links for clients, and book hotels from a large network of worldwide suppliers. What are your main source markets? In the beginning, Splendid Asia stangly established the brand in the Russian market. Later on, we explored the Chinese market, which is now the largest source market for us. However, our services reach emerging markets such as Korea and Thailand. CURRENTLY WITH A SOPHISTICATED BOOKING SYSTEM, WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF DEVELOPING BOTH B2B & B2C PLATFORMS FOR OUR PARTNERS AND INDEPENDENT TRAVELLERS How do you leverage technology and why is this important? Travel needs have been evolving in fast pace over the years, especially in the recent past with the technological wave. Today every traveller seeks immediate response to their inquiries and expects the best of service. This is the case for any supplying agent as well, because their customers being their number one priority, they expect to be able to enjoy the latest technologies for the mutual convenience. Hence, the technological strength at Splendid Asia has proven to create a much stronger bond with our partners worldwide, because of the speed and reliability. Your portal is entirely B2B. Could you imagine doing a B2C operation? Currently with a sophisticated booking system, we are on the verge of developing both B2B & B2C platforms for our partners and independent travellers. Our aim is to introduce such platforms at the most outstanding level to refrain from compromising the standards and the principles we stand by. How do you help tourism professionals promote your services? Splendid Asia has maintained a strong reputation of trustworthiness, not only with our suppliers and clients, but also with the rest of the professionals working in the industry by making sure that we provide access to information and resources at the most reliable route promptly whenever required. This way we let them promote our services hassle free, with our strong support any time of any day, so that our collective efforts let us enjoy the ultimate benefit of reaching a larger target audience. Abdulla Naseer Managing Director, Splendid Asia ITB BERLIN NEWS • Wednesday 9 th March 2016
