New host agency Nicer aims to provide travel advisors with AI technology to enable more efficient sales, while also providing consumers with a mobile app to find and contact agents.
Angie Licea, president of Global Travel Collection and a member of Nicer's board of directors, said she is excited about Nicer's platform.
“I’m really excited to see what this means for advisors in the market,” she said. “How can I get more leads? How can I be more productive? How can I make my content more accessible?”
Nicer is affiliated with GTC, the luxury division of Internova Travel Group.
Ragan Stone, CEO and co-founder of Nicer, was a travel advisor. Although she still works with clients, her full-time role is with her Nicer.
Advisors work exclusively with Nicer's web-based platform. Stone said this has the advantage of avoiding multiple sign-ins to GDS and itinerary management software.
Customers use Nicer's app to fill out a profile, find an advisor, and view itineraries. Advisors are connected to clients via the app. You can also invite existing clients to use the app.
Today, Nicer provides advisors with CRM tools, itinerary creation tools, and a point-and-click booking platform for flights, hotels, and car rentals.
Although Nicer's AI capabilities are not yet in production, Nicer is already giving advisors a time-saving advantage, Stone said. Profile information entered by clients through their app profiles is automatically entered into your CRM. Nicer is working on developing a digital wallet where clients can store their payment information. This eliminates the need for advisors to manually collect and enter payment information.
“A lot of the information you organize for advisors becomes unnecessary,” Stone says.
Stone said the AI capabilities are currently in development and are expected to be released in the coming months. Nicer is still collecting data, but once the feature is rolled out, the platform will begin actively recommending it to advisors.
For example, if a family didn't like the fact that they had too many vacation plans last year, an advisor might suggest canceling the tour, Stone said. Or they may recommend a specific hotel based on what other advisors have booked for similar travel groups.
Stone argues that leveraging technology will make advisors more efficient and enable them to sell more.
“Right now, many advisors seem to be plateauing at a certain level of revenue due to typical work-life balance constraints,” she says. “With the help of technology, we can make the process a little more seamless, so if you've sold 1.5 million books and you're feeling burnt out, maybe with Nicer you can sell 3 million books without dramatically increasing your workload. You could probably sell a few more dollars.”
Nicer currently has approximately 20 advisors. Stone said the goal is to have 100 advisors by the end of the year.
“We're definitely not looking for hobby advisors,” she says. “We're looking for professional travel advisors who really want to grow their careers.”
Nicer charges advisors a platform fee and utilizes a fee-split model.
