The FINANCIAL — oneworld is taking the mystery and hassle out of making round-the-world bookings for travel agents and customers in Brazil and the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world with the launch of a simple-to-use dedicated website and a Portuguese language version of its popular online Training Academy.
The moves follow the addition last year of Brazil’s leading carrier, TAM Airlines, to the world’s most highly prized airline alliance – alongside its partner in the LATAM Airlines Group, LAN Airlines, according to oneworld.
The dedicate microsite – at www.lan.com – and with a direct link from TAM and LAN’s own websites– includes a Portuguese version of the online planning and booking tool for oneworld Explorer, the alliance’s flagship round-the-world fare, along with a range of sample itineraries and guidance on how to use the system.
oneworld Explorer is the only round-the-world fare with pricing based on the number of continents visited rather than the distance flown, offering excellent flexibility and making planning as simple as possible. It enables travelers to circumnavigate the globe using the services of TAM and all its airline partners in the oneworld alliance – which, between them, fly to more than a thousand destinations in some 155 countries.
The oneworld Training Academy features a module focusing on that oneworld Explorer fare – and this too is now available in Portuguese. See oneworld.com
oneworld Training Academy’s fun and informative e-learning lessons, each of which should take no more than 30 minutes to complete, are designed to equip travel agents to sell these fares confidently and correctly.
They lead participants through a series of product lessons, with engaging interactive exercises, video, text and images, covering all the command entries needed to book these fares through all the key GDSs (global distribution systems, like Amadeus, Sabre, etc.) enabling travel agents to book them quickly and easily, using the various support tools available via oneworld.com, including the interactive oneworld Explorer online travel planner.
Those successfully completing the modules can download and print off a diploma certificate proclaiming them a “oneworld fares specialist”.
More modules, covering the alliance’s other fares, are scheduled to be added soon. oneworld offers a wider range of fares than any other global airline alliance. They offer the flexibility of flights for trips around the world, or through several or just one continent, on any of oneworld’s 15 member airlines and more than 30 affiliated carriers, serving almost a thousand destinations in more than 150 countries.
The launch of this Portuguese version means that the oneworld Training Academy is now available in a choice of seven languages, with the recent addition also of versions in Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish alongside the original English.
oneworld Director of Sales José María Alvarado said: “Portuguese speakers have always been long-distance travelers and there is a growing thirst among Brazilians to voyage around the world.
“The launch of oneworld’s new dedicated Portuguese-language version of our oneworld Explorer booking tool and microsite makes planning and booking round-the-world trips smooth and simple for them.
“There is quite a wide-spread myth in the travel industry that alliance fares are complicated products to sell and book. The oneworld Academy, which has been very well received in other markets since its launch a year ago, knocks that firmly on the head by showing how quick, easy and simple oneworld fares are to work with.”
LATAM Airlines Group’s Leisure Sales Strategy Senior Manager Lissy Reinhardt added: “Now that TAM Airlines has joined LAN Airlines in oneworld, we are pleased to be adding Portuguese as a language option for the oneworld Training Academy, supporting travel agents throughout Brazil and the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world in taking full advantage of what this attractive range of products offers them and their customers –the ultimate, highly flexible fares offering flights on a collection of the world’s leading airlines and at very competitive prices.”
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