South Africa’s first travel app launched

Travelport, a leading Travel Commerce Platform, and XL Travel havelaunched a new app for the XL Travel Group, one of the largest and most influential travel consortia in South Africa.

The new app, named XLGO, will help customers of XL Travel’s agencies across South Africa provide advanced mobile travel capabilities such as flexible itinerary management, real-time communications, duty of care and day of travel assistance.

“The provision of sophisticated mobile services in travel is no longer an option, it has become a necessity,” said Marco Ciocchetti, CEO of the XL Travel Group. “The launch of the XLGO app is the first step in our new mobile strategy, with additional mobile features and functionality to be regularly rolled out. Selecting Travelport for our mobile solution and roadmap will enable us to lead the way when providing innovative mobile travel services in our market that make every stage of travel more efficient, seamless and enjoyable.”

A key element of the XLGO app is Travelport Engage; a flexible mobile messaging tool which delivers relevant and personalised travel updates during and after every trip. Other features include automatic itinerary updates, organised trip segments to easily navigate itineraries and real-time assistance is always at hand, where travellers are connected directly to a support agent.

“We are delighted to launch Trip Assist with the XL Travel Group, a prominent and influential player in the South African travel industry,” added Robyn Christie, General Manager at Travelport South Africa. “In an increasingly smartphone-led communications world, we are committed to improving customers’ travel experiences with sophisticated mobile solutions that exploits the expertise and experience of Travelport Digital.”

Later features planned for the app are to encourage user control via the ability to request flight changes, select preferred seating and the ability to synch trip information with personal calendars from within the app.