List of 18 Key Travel Agency Suppliers

In a constantly evolving emerging industry, it is a good practice to periodically evaluate your agency’s suppliers. You can always make adjustments according to your criteria and market-facing strategy. Let’s analyze the requirements together, in the current market conditions.

What do we mean by travel agency suppliers?

Suppliers are defined as any entity that offers tourism or management products, i.e. that can be marketed, or used by travel agencies.

Examples include:

• Airlines 
• Hotels 
• Cruise companies 
• Car rental companies 
• Excursion providers 
• Travel insurance companies 
• Tour operators  
• Wholesale companies. 

It is also important to consider the software suppliers needed to promote, distribute and sell your tour packages.

Suppliers by type of agency

Each type of agency has suppliers geared toward its target market. 

For retail travel agencies, their suppliers, in terms of products, will be mainly local wholesale agencies, located in their outbound market, that provide them with structured services. 

For wholesale travel agencies, dedicated to tour planning, their product suppliers will be destination tour operators, hotel chains and major outfitters, such as bed banks.

Which suppliers are used by a retail travel agency?

In a market that requires an omnichannel presence, retail travel agencies must have suppliers dedicated to strengthening their outreach to the end customer with the best offers.

• Management tools: using travel agency software can reduce manual work, streamline administration and offer customers a more personalized experience. 

• CRM and Marketing Tools: a good CRM allows you to track the activity of your leads and customers and offer them the alternatives that best suit their preferences and needs. Marketing tools offer email marketing and enable actions to be automated to keep in close contact with travelers and retain their loyalty. 
• Integrations: connecting an agency’s systems with suppliers of flights, tours, hotels and activities will allow you to offer a better experience to your clients. You can see a list of examples of simple integration capabilities at the end of this article.
• Product suppliers: A selection of local or global wholesale agencies with tour planning and services in line with your agency’s business model.

Which suppliers are used by a wholesale travel agency?

Focusing on the organization of trips and tours and targeting the B2B business, wholesale agencies require suppliers that reinforce their outreach to other companies to achieve their objectives.

• Management systems to automate the processes and administration of the company. Managing and integrating suppliers is key to achieving this goal.
• Booking software to offer your agencies simple and streamlined access to your product portfolio. 
• CRM oriented toward market support and development. 
• Product suppliers: in this case these will be the hotels and chains directly or through Channel Managers, Tour Operators, bed banks, destinations and all the providers involved in running a tour.

List of suppliers for travel agencies

Although it is impossible to make a list including all the options, the lists of exhibitors at the major travel fairs are an excellent source of contacts and supplier data. 

Suppliers aimed at wholesale agencies:

• Juniperor Travelgatex: These are tools that offer different modules depending on the scope of the company. They are designed to consolidate the sales flow, operation and supplier integration in a single platform. They also enable access to customers so that they can carry out their transactions. In this field we can also include Price Surfer and Booking Motor.
• Hotelbeds: the world’s largest bed bank following the acquisition of Tourico and GTA in 2017, Hotelbeds offers global coverage in its hotel and service offerings, and is easily integrated into your company’s internal systems.
• Omnibees: offering a solution that provides access to more than 5,000 hotels in Brazil and Latin America, it also allows you to negotiate direct agreements and simplifies international distribution.
• Trivago: a leading metasearch engine with global reach. Through FastConnect it streamlines distribution and allows customers to access your products as they search. 

Suppliers aimed at retail agencies:

In this day and age, it is more important than ever to place market staying power as a valuable asset when choosing a wholesaler for our passengers. Here are some examples:

• Bedsonline: a global supplier of the Hotelbeds group. It distributes services, hotels and car rentals worldwide.
• Fuerza Delta, in Colombia, is the wholesaler of Viajes Chapinero, a pioneer in the market with more than 40 years of experience.
• Cielos Abiertos, a wholesaler that is part of the Aviatur group, offers hotels and international services to all agencies in Colombia.
• Mega Travelis one of the leading companies in the Mexican market. Its strength is its wide range of products in the five major continents.
• OPESA is a company with several years of experience in the Mexican market. Through VIP access, agents can receive special training and other benefits.
• SALMOR, in Ecuador, has been offering products to travel agencies for more than 30 years. They are representatives of WDW and several cruise companies.

Suppliers aimed at both wholesale and retail travel agencies

The difference lies in the commissions and the level of connectivity.

• Expedia Travel Group: Founded in 1996, it shares 95% of the world market with Booking. 

Through EPS (Expedia Partner Solutions) it offers solutions to the industry, from integrations, to 100% customizable landing pages, to affiliations so that agencies can offer flights, hotels, cars and activities in exchange for a commission.

• Booking.com: A member of Booking Travel Holdings, Booking revolutionized the industry with its pay-at-destination model.  

It offers an affiliate program with access to its hotels, tours and services, along with various tools geared toward travel agencies.

• Best Day: Mexico’s largest travel agency. Acquired in 2020 by Despegar.com, it specializes in hotels and services in Latin America, through its wholesaler, Hoteldo.com.
• Civitatis: provides a wide range of tours and experiences around the world. You can access its affiliate program that allows you to earn commissions on sales.
• Grayline: with over 100 years of experience and 700 destinations worldwide, Grayline is a pioneer in transfers and city tours. It currently offers an extensive range of excursions and it is possible to become an affiliate, as well as to integrate its content.
• Ofran: founded in Israel, this company provides car rental solutions in more than 50 destinations around the world. You can integrate their product into your travel agency’s product range, or use their affiliate program and earn commissions on sales.

The options are endless. The important thing is that you can choose your suppliers by paying special attention to those that suit your company’s strategy.

• Hubspot: This is a global CRM tool that allows you to manage your contact and customer information, manage your sales actions and track the work of the different teams in your company. 
• CRM Travel: This system is specially designed for the travel industry, so it has specific adaptations related to the sector.

The options are endless. The important thing is that you can choose your suppliers by paying special attention to those that suit your company’s strategy.