VisitEngland has launched a business-to-business digital platform that enables tourism suppliers to connect to multiple international distributors.
Tourism Exchange Great Britain (TXGB) is a one-stop shop for English tourism suppliers including accommodation providers, visitor attractions and experiences, to link to distributors with international reach and sell their products overseas.
VisitEngland Commercial Director Carol Dray said:
“TXGB will drive bookings for the hundreds of thousands of tourism businesses in England by making it easier for them to access new markets and ultimately more customers.
“England’s tourism product will be on show internationally to global distributors and their customers, promoting the latest tourism products, services and experiences, driving bookings and inbound tourism across the country, boosting regional economies.”
TXGB simplifies the process for businesses wanting to connect to multiple distributor
channels. By linking to tourism suppliers’ booking systems, TXGB ‘feeds’ live
availability and pricing, as well as product descriptions, images and relevant content
into national and international distributor sites such as Booking.com, Ctrip and Expedia.
Suppliers can select as many distributors as they want by agreeing to the respective terms, conditions and fees. The platform also gives suppliers access to booking data and sales analytics, so that businesses can identify trends across all distribution channels. For those businesses that do not have a booking system, or booking pages on their website, TXGB can also help get them up and running.
Tourism businesses in England can connect to TXGB, developed and operated by technology partners Rainmaker and V3, for free. They pay commission to the distributors they opt into and a 2.5% + vat booking fee to TXGB per booking, which goes towards the sustainability of the platform.
Distributors benefit from access to a wide range of England tourism products, an
easy connection either via TXGB’s free of charge white label tools which are pre-set
or, they are free to develop a connection via an open API which links the online systems of suppliers and distributors seamlessly, allowing full customisation of pages. TXGB also provides 24/7 email and telephone support for suppliers and distributors.
TXGB can also be used by destinations across England who can become distributors, making all tourism products within their destination available to distributors in one place.
TXGB was developed as part of the UK Government’s Discover England Fund, which was administered by VisitEngland, to support the tourism industry develop world-class bookable English tourism products.
Notes to Editors:
- TXGB is launching in conjunction with the roll-out of ‘Taking England to the World’, VisitEngland’s training programme for England based travel trade. The training sessions start in Manchester on 4 July 2019 with Google Digital Garage. The training and accompanying toolkit supports businesses to become “international ready”, with modules covering everything from knowing types of inbound travellers to calculating pricing and working with the media. Copies of the toolkit can be downloaded at: https://trade.visitbritain.com/research-and-training/training/uk-supplier-training/
• For more information on technology partner Rainmaker see: https://rainmaker.solutions/
• For more information on technology partner V3 see: https://www.v3leisure.com/
• Distributors currently connected to TXGB: Booking.com, Trivago, Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com, Tripadvisor, Ctrip, Agoda and Flight Centre, with more in the pipeline.
• To see TXGB click here