Eurostar will launch its new trade portal Voyager in the spring, promising a significantly quicker user experience for agents, TTG can reveal.
Two years in development, Voyager builds on Eurostar’s existing browser-based interface Opera, and will serve as a single online portal for all trade functions.
When Eurostar, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, switches Opera off in spring, migration is expected to be a simple, seamless transition via the existing Eurostar 4 Agents website.
Existing users will be able to log in as usual and start benefiting from the improvements. New-to-Eurostar agents, meanwhile, must make £5,000 worth of bookings over the course of a year to qualify for a trade account and access to Voyager.
Paul Brindley, Eurostar’s head of indirect sales and distribution, told TTG Voyager was based on feedback from trade partners and had been designed to be as intuitive as possible.
Key improvements, he said, included reducing the time taken to carry out more complex functions such as making wheelchair and companion bookings, down 63% from an average of five minutes and six seconds to one minute 52 seconds, as well as group bookings, amendments and changes.
Average log in times, meanwhile, have been more than cut in half from 32 seconds to 15 seconds.
Brindley, who joined Eurostar earlier this year, said he was excited to roll the new system out to the trade, and expected it to eventually support in excess of a thousand users.
He added a combination of extensive planning for all Brexit scenarios and the launch of Voyager had allowed Eurostar to set “fairly ambitious” growth targets for 2020.