On March 1, 2021, the new Law that requires applying the resident status in the final phase of booking a plane or ferry ticket came into force, and Logitravel Group has already adjusted and applied the new rules, both at Logitravel.com as the online travel agency and the tour operator Smytravel.
Having reviewed the new policy, we believe that all of the improvements contribute to customer trust and transparency, which is positive for us and we will always support this. It is true that from Smyflights, Logitravel Group’s Transport consolidator, we have not detected any increase in airline rates for residents, however several rumors were in circulation suggesting that this was happening, which may have generated a situation of distrust in the consumer. Comments Toni Cortés, Managing Director Corporate Transports of Logitravel Group.
Logitravel Group has chosen to develop its own solution. It has removed the resident option from the flight search engines, informing the customer through a message that the discount will be applied in subsequent steps. Advising the customer that below are all the flight options priced at the standard fare without the discount applied. And once the client has chosen their flight, when entering the data and at the payment page, the resident status is requested and the corresponding discount is then applied so that in this way they see the new price with the resident discount applied. At this point, the customer only needs to fill in the personal information, residence, payment method and select any of the optional extras to finalise the reservation. It should be noted that this solution has been applied in the versions of all the devices (mobile phones, tablets and computers) of the Logitravel and Smytravel flights page.
Toni Cortés explains: Our reservation process optimises and simplifies the user experience as much as possible, and we had to analyze in depth how we could adapt to the new regulations without negatively affecting the experience and of course the conversion. The industry had a very clear standard on the purchasing process for a resident, but now each operator has applied their own solution. We hope that in the coming months all the solutions in the industry will converge towards the best option and that a new standard will appear.
Although the intention of the new regulations is positive, the tourist group regrets the limited time that was given to implement the new Law. It was published on December 31, 2020 with an enforcement date of March 1, 2021, giving only 2 months to adapt to the new norm, at such a delicate and very unstable time for tourism companies. Likewise, the uncertainty about how to apply the regulations, and how they would fit into the complex links in the distribution chain has been widespread, causing a lot of confusion among all companies involved.
