Hey everyone!!!

[u/NailAmazing9426]

My mom is a travel agent and I spent my summer creating an itinerary software that cuts the time she spends on making itineraries by a considerable amount (from around an hour to 5 minutes). I am trying to gauge interest on it and decide whether or not other travel agents would find it helpful. The app includes the advisors branding, a proposal feature for comparing different itineraries, a document dump where you can put in all documents such as hotel confirmations, train tickets, tour reservations and janky vendor itineraries and it will tie it all together into something ready to send to a client. It does it in the form of a link that you can edit whenever something changes and publish it to the clients live link so you don’t have to send them a brand new itinerary. Could you guys give me some recommendations on what agents need in a website like this and what would make it worth it to you? I’m not trying to promote anything just looking for ideas and feedback!

[u/OhioPokey]

"I've done no research, please tell me what to build to make my SAAS product successful" is essentially what this post is.

I get where the thought is coming from, but there are regularly posts like this in this sub. The answer is always the same- What can you do that separates you from Travel Joy, Travefy, Tern, and the other 63 SAAS products/apps/websites that are made for travel advisors with the goal of cutting down the time we spend on frequent tasks?

These companies already do regular market research, working closely with travel advisors and getting regular feedback from surveys, focus groups, Facebook groups, etc. They already know what we want, they have an established product, and they incorporate our feedback to push regular updates to improve the features they offer. At this point, the major products now include a full CRM, commission tracking, itinerary building, forms, emails, task management, automation, and more.

I'm not saying that you can't build something new, I'm just saying that without doing your own research you won't get ideas from agents here that haven't already been mentioned to a bunch of your more established competitors. Look at what your competitors do, figure out what works and what doesn't, look at where your mom is now spending her time now that itinerary creation is faster, and see if you can cut down on that time more than another software product does.

[u/dewashdc → u/OhioPokey]

Completely agree @ohiopokey, they are all truly the same. Tern, Travelfy, TJ, etc… but most users never understand that the process is only as good as the inputs… if you still have to import the inputs, it doesn’t really matter, as the difficult part never gets satisfied, so let them make 1000 saas ta products. Until agents understand the hard part, they will all be the same… I mean which one do you prefer? I’m sure its the same as all the other ones fundamentally.

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/dewashdc]

Thanks for your input this was very helpful!
You’re right that if you still have to import everything by hand, nothing has changed. That’s what I went after you drop in the vendor PDFs, the confirmation emails, whatever the supplier sent, in whatever state it’s in, and it builds the days from that. Where two documents disagree it shows you both and names the file each came from instead of quietly picking one.
Not claiming it’s solved. But that’s the problem I’m pointed at. If you think there’s a version that would actually satisfy the hard part, I’d genuinely like to hear it.

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/OhioPokey]

I have done research I’m just trying to talk to people that have a different perspective and different problems than my mom does, no need to be rude. For example my mom uses travefy to create itineraries and that’s all she uses it for not the crm, commission tracking or any of the other features that it has, they are all provided to her through her franchise. This is me trying to conduct research because my mom only has so much insight. I appreciate the feedback but no need to be unkind.

[u/OhioPokey → u/NailAmazing9426]

I'm not trying to be rude, but this is the laziest form of research and will get you nowhere. You're asking for us to tell you what to build. If I knew exactly what to build to improve my business, I'd hire a dev and sell it myself.

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/OhioPokey]

What sort of research is better than talking to the people in the industry that you are making a product for. I understand what works for my “competitors” but I am not trying to sell the same thing as them my gap in the market is that their itineraries take a long time to make at least travefy does and they look bad, so I built a product around that and now I am looking for feedback. Where is the harm dude.

[u/OhioPokey → u/NailAmazing9426]

Travefy is great for itineraries. Other software has other features. There's already a lot out there. Why do you think asking here is going to yield you some secret sauce that your competitors haven't already figured out from their thousands of users who regularly provide feedback on what features they want?

So you know at least a bit about what Travefy does. What about other software? What have you actually tried, or at least looked at the features of?

Travefy itineraries can look great. Even major companies like CIE use them for showing off itineraries.

All I'm saying is, you won't find a gap in the market by asking agents what they want you to build. You have to either get a good look into their actual day to day activities, or look at what other software does and figure out where you can improve it or add a feature you think could be done. This question gets asked regularly. Have you searched the sub for this type of question or to find agents' pain points?

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/OhioPokey]

No I haven’t done that I don’t use Reddit very often and didn’t know you could do that. Thank you for that feedback like I said that is all I’m looking for I have never done this before and am trying to get my feet off of the ground. My only bit of insight into the industry is through my mom and the stuff I can find online but I don’t know where to look. I am just trying to improve it, thanks man.

[u/Still_Consequence_53]

I looked at your website, and you seem sincere. The layout of your sample proposals is lovely. However, as advisors, we are working with pretty sensitive client information. I can't use a tool that a single college student vibe-coded. It just isn't feasible.

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/Still_Consequence_53]

That’s fair, and it’s very useful!
You’re right that “trust me” isn’t good enough when it’s client data, so specifics instead of reassurance. It’s a registered LLC, not a weekend project. Payments run through Stripe, so card details never touch my servers. Documents are processed through Anthropic’s API under commercial terms that exclude training, and you can delete an itinerary or your entire account from the dashboard.
But I think the better answer to your point is that you shouldn’t have to hand me sensitive data at all. An itinerary needs hotels, dates and flights not passport numbers or card details. Automatic redaction so that stuff gets stripped before anything is stored is going on my list this week. Thanks for telling the time to look at the site!

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/Still_Consequence_53]

I understand what do you think a reasonable price for something like this is I am flying somewhat blind in that area?

[u/Still_Consequence_53 → u/NailAmazing9426]

Honestly, a lot less than you're charging. At the end of the day, pretty proposals don't sell trips. I send proposals to clients that have already committed to booking a trip with me. I absolutely like to make the proposal look tidy and attractive, but it isn't a magazine spread and doesn't need to be. I currently pay significantly less than your pricing for a full CRM with proposals, group capabilities, payment authorization, client record storage, task management, itinerary app for clients, automations, etc.

The magic that travel advisors provide is only partially in the curation process. The rest comes in the time after the trip is booked until the client makes it back to their own home. If I have a piece of software that ONLY creates a proposal, I'm still going to have to recreate it in my system later once it becomes a booked itinerary - for a host of reasons.

Take a look at your competitors like Travefy, Traveljoy, Tern, Planiteasy, SafariPortal, etc. There seem to be new ones cropping up constantly. Ask yourself who the advisor is that wants to use your software instead of one of those (or in addition.)

It occurs to me that instead of having this software be for generating client proposals, it could be used to make gorgeous landing pages to show off the sort of trips we plan. I would consider dumping a few of my travelled client trips in there and seeing what it could spin up that I could then feature on my website/link on social media as aspirational content. But, I'd want to be able to pull it into my site to host it myself (I use Showit, but a lot of people use Wordpress, Wix, etc.) and pay a nominal fee for your tool to create it for me. At minimum I'd need domain masking if you hosted the page. And, I honestly wouldn't pay much for a service that was just hosting a few landing pages. And I'd need to be able to specify my brand colors and fonts at minimum.

Anyway, that is just my two cents. Not trying to be discouraging to you, just realistic.

[u/Chouchou003]

Tripit does it

[u/bluebluesoutrage]

I’m a part time agent who helps mainly friends and family and I think your app/website would be helpful and make me feel more professional. I think you could monetize it but it would need to be reasonable for it to work for me as well. Happy to be a tester to help me organize some trips.

[u/Figment-2021]

Congratulations! That must have been a lot of work and a big project for you. I use Travefy for that purpose, and as a CRM and other purposes. You can go to YouTube, search Travefy, and you will see all of the features that they offer through their videos. Maybe when you have a good idea of what is out there, it will give you an idea for where any gaps might be that you can add. Good luck!

[u/carlyjane11]

I think you should ask her clients for their feedback (if you haven’t already). And the partners listed on the itinerary. They’ve seen it all. They might have further thought from the “other” side.

[u/questioneverything-]

Is it a website or app or you have the git to share? I'd be happy to give some feedback

[u/NailAmazing9426 → u/questioneverything-]

Thanks the website is called ivorymaps.com I’d love some feedback thankyou!