Travelport launches ‘Opinions’ agent networking in the UK

Travelport has unveiled its ‘Opinions’ online networking service in the UK and Ireland following its launch in France last year.

The service enables agents to interact with each other via a forum, find destination experts, upload accommodation reviews with images, maps and relevant information and invite other travel professionals to join.

Travelport Opinions, which was developed in conjunction with technology specialist Vinivi, has attracted more than 1,700 business and leisure agents in France of which, about a third are not Travelport GDS users.

The service enables users to create a profile showing destinations they consider themselves experts in as well as places they have visited.

Travelport Opinions is an invite only service and the company plans to monitor the community to ensure it is only used by travel professionals.

Reviews are split into two categories – professional and consumer-generated – and agents can contact the professional reviewers to ask them specific questions about the accommodation.

There is also a facility to be automatically notified when new reviews about a property are posted.

Travelport director of new business development Jason Hancock said the service would be rolled out on a country-by-country basis and that there no plans to integrate it with the company’s Universal Desktop solution.