GALILEO Indonesia released its hotel booking product Travelport Rooms and More (TRAM) in Indonesia yesterday, and outlined that it was targeting US$250,000 in revenue within TRAM’s first year of operations there.

Galileo Indonesia general manager, Agus Santoso, said TRAM would make hotel reservations easier and more profitable for travel agents.

According to Galileo Indonesia director, Raymond Setokusumo, agents selling hotel rooms are forced to fork out high bank charges when clearing cheques for commission payments received from individual hotels or overseas partners.

TRAM claims to minimise these charges by pooling sales commissions from aggregators and OTAs via PayPal, to be processed in lump sums periodically.

Santoso said TRAM would also allow agents to see the most competitive prices offered by different aggregators on the same sector, as well as agency commissions.

Commenting on the new product, Gunawan Travel Services managing director Gunawan said: “TRAM may work for big agents, but is still difficult for those small ones, who consider even US$25 bank charges still valuable.”