Ways to ease out your traveling woes using Location Intelligence within Dynamics 365 CRM

Did you know, the French Eifel Tower is visited by almost 7 million visitors every year of which 75% are Tourists or visitors. The Taj Mahal of India, too, experiences a similar number of visitors every year. The Swiss chocolate factories run programs throughout the day for 8 hours to accommodate the visitors from all over the world gushing in to observe the making process and to taste the chocolates! The farm tours and activities play an important role in the NZ$15 billion Dairy Industry of New Zealand. The numbers have of course been shifted because of the global pandemic however, for years, tourists, trips, excursions, visits have handsomely contributed to the global Tourism Industry. It is not about a popular destination, city or village, historic or modern-day creation, if it rings with the heartstrings of the people, they tour it!

Pre pandemic, the overall Tourism Industry of the world was roughly around 4.7 trillion USD entertaining around 415 million tourists worldwide. The pandemic, like everything else in life, had affected these numbers adversely. With the ray of hope in the form of vaccines, the industry has shown major signs of a rebound. The world is healing and so is Tourism. The protocols and rules though immensely constricted now, are inviting the travel fanatics globally. With the new protocols applied, touring a place needs to be excessively disciplined. Hence, better tour management and planning need to be in place! The major trouble areas for the Tourism Industry are-

Any amount of manpower seems insufficient to manage such a driven industry with a crucial protocol. What if, software or an app is available at hand for the travel companies, associated people carrying out local management of such tours, and specific tourists so that everybody is on the same page and at ease? We suggest Maplytics could be one such amazing solution!

Maplytics is a preferred, 5 star rated geo-analytical mapping app on Microsoft AppSource for Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. It empowers users across verticals with a visual representation of geo-coded data, creating optimized routes, automatic scheduling of appointments, Radius Search for nearby clients, sales Territory defining, and so on by enhancing their sales and other business processes.

The selection of a place for vacation is the foremost important task a person faces. What if the data of all the ideal places of the visit is updated in Dynamics 365 CRM! Well, the Tour and Travel Companies always have a set of elite or loyal clients. They are often the regulars and get all the arrangements personalized or arranged with the help of the Travel Company agents. The companies could start off by providing this additional beneficiary service involving Maplytics within Dynamics 365 CRM for these special clients. Such users could easily check country-wise, state-wise, city-wise and plot the ideal places to visit on the map using the geo analytical solution. The user could even sub select the places belonging to the beach region, the mountainous areas, developed cities, or beautiful countryside. Once the destination of travel is selected, the question of reaching that destination arises. The CRM at the Travel Company’s end could be updated with live data on the ticket availability and status of flights, trains, buses, ships, rental cars, and so on. This live data could also be traced over the map using Maplytics. If a user, either the travel agent or an individual subscribed with the Travel company decides to book a flight in the early morning slot for his client/ family, could simply click on the pushpin associated with that flight on the Map and be redirected to the information of the official website for the actual booking and payment.

Options for local transport too could be selected and booked in this manner for local sightseeing. The family back home could even trace the whereabouts of the traveling family members using the live tracking option on booking the local transport with Maplytics on mobile as a benefit of being subscribed to the Travel Company using Dynamics 365 CRM. This mobile option could also be provided to the employees or partners of the Travel Company, i.e. the Tour Guides, Drivers, and other supporting staff.

Visualizing hotels for stay over a map and segregating them as per their tariffs, services provided, distance from airport/ railway station, customer reviews also sounds relaxing and problem-free! Being at the actual vacation spot, the user, with the help of the travel company agents could select from a host of tour guides registered in the CRM Data based on their details such as areas of expertise, years of experience, ratings provided by the previous clients, service rate, and so on. The traveling users along with the selected tour guide could then sit and chalk out the day-wise sightseeing plan. They could add the selected places and form optimized travel routes for the day using the optimized routing feature. These routes and the turn-by-turn navigation could be circulated among the traveling members, drivers, tour guides, family at home, and others involved. If a traveling group is keen on having a ranch tour, they could plot the open ranches near them and book slots for visit on a convenient day and time. Reservations in this manner could be done for shows at the museums, operas, sound and light shows, music gigs, and more, in advance or while being on the go.

Vacations are a time of fun. Thus, eat-outs, exotic spas, local cafes are places most sought after. Using the Radius/ Proximity search, the traveling users could fetch the restaurants popular for local cuisines around them. They could spot local cafes or exotic spas around for relaxed days. Places selling local souvenirs or other such memorabilia could also be plotted nearest to the current location of the user and visited with proper directions. While on the go to a particular tourist attraction, the travellers may face the need to visit gas stations. Using Along the route or the Point of Interest Location features, gas stations, petrol pumps, emergency medical facilities, etc. could be plotted on the map along the travel route being followed and used easily. In case an art gallery on the travel schedule is unexpectedly shut for the day, the user could search for an alternate place of visit along the route and visit that instead.

For extremely organized travellers who plan everything well in advance, the minute-to-minute travel plan or itinerary could be planned before the travel starts and all the visits could be auto-scheduled. Thus, the friends and family joining in from other regions, the drivers, guides, travel company agents, etc. could be well aware of the plan and in sync with the details. In case of certain changes, the schedules could be updated. During international travels, language becomes a barrier with the locals in the tourism industry. Thus, with the multilingual aspect of Maplytics, all the locals involved in the tour plan can view the tour details in their respective languages and follow the same without a crux. Thus, we see, that Maplytics if used smartly can tackle a lot of the stress points well, associated with travel and vacation and truly make the holiday enjoyable and worthwhile. It can definitely act as a problem-solving solution and give a relaxing experience!

To know more about the other such features and applications of Maplytics, do have a look at our Blogs and Video Library. Also, write us your mapping needs at crm@inogic.com and get a free demo and a Q/A session scheduled especially based on your requirements.