Hummingbird Travel - A Pillar of Knowledge in Luxury Destinations

In this interview, Tomas Cochrane, Director of Sales and Marketing at Hummingbird Travel, reveals how this luxury island specialist DMC in the Indian Ocean is revolutionizing the industry through technology and API integration with TravelgateX. With over 25 years of experience, Hummingbird Travel stands as a reference in the sector, offering clients access to competitive rates, exclusive benefits, and a dedicated team for tailor-made itineraries.

Tell us about your business?

Hummingbird Travel is a luxury island specialist DMC representing four key destinations in the Indian Ocean: Maldives, Mauritius and Reunion, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka. We've been operating in the Indian Ocean for over 25 years, which gives us unparalleled knowledge of the regions we feature. We act as a one-stop-shop for tour operators and travel agents, handling everything from meet and greet to transfers, accommodation, and experiences. Furthermore, we're excited to announce that we'll be adding Caribbean islands to our portfolio soon.

What led you to use TravelgateX products or services?

Technology has been a major focus for our company in recent years, and we've invested significantly in making our online booking engine one of the easiest to use in the industry. With live availability, rates, and special offer updates every day, the logical next step was to allow our booking engine to connect with partners through API integration, and TravelgateX offers us a gateway to connect with various clients worldwide.

What products or services do you use at TravelgateX?

As a DMC supplier, our main service through TravelgateX is to feed our online rates to B2B partners in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.

How did you find TravelgateX, and why did you decide to work with us?

TravelgateX was recommended to us by one of our key partners when we were discussing the quickest and easiest way to connect with each other via API. They were already set up on TravelgateX, so all we needed to do was set up ourselves on the system, and we could form an API connection quickly and efficiently.

How did TravelgateX solutions help you address specific challenges?

Setting up a direct API connection is time-consuming and resource-intensive, so having a platform like TravelgateX that only requires one connection and then gives you access to thousands of operators and agents is very efficient. It also acts as a useful platform to advertise our services to companies we may not be aware of.

What outstanding results and achievements have you gained through our collaboration?

We've connected with brand-new partners via TravelgateX who, in less than a year, are making some fantastic bookings with us.

Advice and recommendations for other professionals in your industry.

The future of the travel industry is definitely going to be powered by tech, and API connectivity is how all hotel rates will be fed to DMCs and eventually to tour operators as we move away from manual loading and traditional rate sheets. So it's important to start API integration now to keep up with the rest of the industry.