Group Tour Quoting Hotels Just Got Faster

Picture yourself booking a 7-night package across two cities for a group of 22 travellers, departing in three weeks. Quote that group the usual way and you’re emailing dozens of properties one at a time. Then waiting on replies, hoping enough come back before your clients book elsewhere. For you and for many group tour operators, that wait is what slows group tour quoting down the most. The single biggest delay between a request and a confirmed sale.

That’s where Hubwayz changes the game for its clients. By partnering with the Tour Operation Platform (TOP), built by Mango Software Solutions, Hubwayz puts a real advantage in your hands. TOP is a group tour operation system built to manage sourcing, rate offers, reservations, and accounting in one place. Now, live hotel rates and real-time availability from Hubwayz are available directly inside that same TOP workflow, for the hotels connected through the integration. So at least part of group tour quoting hotels can start with current data already on screen, instead of waiting on a round of emails.

What Is a Group Tour Operation System?

A group tour operation system is the back-office a tour operator or DMC uses to run group business end to end. Sourcing hotels, building rate offers and itineraries, managing reservations, and handling the accounting that follows.

TOP, built by Mango Software Solutions over 15 years, is one of these systems. It was used by more than 300 operators across over 18,000 tours. Now Hubwayz puts it in its clients’ hands as a real advantage.

Why Tour Operators Use a System Like TOP

Group tour operators have traditionally managed hotel sourcing through email. By contacting properties one at a time, tracking replies in a spreadsheet, and starting a separate file once a reservation is confirmed. For a group of 20 or more, across multiple hotels and multiple nights, that adds up to a lot of open threads to track.

This system, now connected to Hubwayz, consolidates that work. Its inquiry tool lets an operator select a batch of hotels, anywhere from 20 to 50, and send out every availability request automatically. One click, not dozens of emails typed by hand.

Replies still arrive the same way, by email, straight to the operator’s inbox, so there’s a single thread to track rather than a separate conversation with every property.

The same workflow carries into reservations: operators send those bookings to hotels by email, the same way they do today, and track each status, sent, confirmed, pending, cancelled, in one place inside TOP. That sourcing-to-booking continuity, the core advantage over email and spreadsheets scattered across inboxes, is what this partnership plugs into.

What’s New for Group Tour Quoting

Until now, quoting hotels for a group inside TOP meant relying entirely on that inquiry tool: send the requests, then wait for hotels to reply. Jesse Yishai, VP of Global Business Development at Mango Software Solutions, has described this as a strong fit for markets where hotel availability is tight, though it remains a request-and-response process, with replies arriving over hours or days.

The new connection adds another layer to that same TOP workflow, without asking anyone to leave it. Through TOP, operators can now check Hubwayz’s live rates and availability directly, for the hotels and room blocks connected through the integration, without sending a separate inquiry, switching to a separate system, or searching supplier sites and copying rates into the quote by hand. For the parts of a group request that still call for a hotel’s own reservations department, TOP’s inquiry tool continues to handle that exactly as it does today. Either way, the workflow inside TOP stays the same. What changes is how much of it still depends on waiting for a reply.

What Do Hubwayz Clients Gain From This?

For travel agencies, wholesalers, and DMCs already on Hubwayz, this partnership extends where that connection reaches, into TOP’s own group quoting workflow. The same live rates and availability already used for individual bookings now also cover a meaningful slice of group sourcing, for the hotels and blocks where that inventory is connected.

Three things change in practice, for that part of the booking. Quotes move faster, since the wait for hotel replies no longer applies to Hubwayz-connected inventory. Offers are more accurate, built on rates and availability that reflect the current market, rather than what was true when an inquiry went out. And operators get time back: fewer inquiries to send for the hotels Hubwayz already covers means more time for new sales, client relationships, and the group requests, whether from agencies, wholesalers, or direct B2C travellers, that still call for a more hands-on approach.

Across the Hubwayz platform, clients report 40% more bookings and a 40% increase in profit on average, alongside 60% less time spent on back-office work.

Fewer Tools, Fewer Errors, a Competitive Edge

We are all aware that the more software tools you use in your workflow the more time is wasted and the more the risk of human errors is increased. Think about it, in your workflow; how many different software tools does your team use from initial contact of an agent to the final receipt of the payment? For some DMCs or multi day tour operators this easily reaches 4+ different tools. Imagine how many human errors and time can be saved by having the workflow in one platform? With the integration with Hubwayz you can enjoy the speed, accuracy and conveniency of Hubwayz within the TOP system.
For whoever is considering Hubwayz; think of faster response time with rate offers and taking less risk as the rates are realtime rates – no need any more to add a “buffer” to your rates. Both make you much more competitive.  

(Jesse Yishai, VP of Global Business Development, Mango Software)

Two Systems, Built to Work Together

This partnership brings together two systems with complementary strengths. Hubwayz’s live rates and availability are strongest for FIT bookings, with group inventory connected wherever it’s available. TOP is purpose-built to manage everything from FIT to multi-bus groups in one workflow, including the parts of group sourcing that still call for a hotel’s own reservations department. The connection runs both ways. A group operator working in TOP pulls Hubwayz’s live rates straight into a quote, and a Hubwayz client who picks up group business can move into TOP to organise and quote it there. Either way, group tour operators get a faster path from request to confirmed booking: live data where Hubwayz has it, and TOP’s proven inquiry process everywhere else.

If your team works with TOP, the fastest way to see this in action is a short walkthrough with the Hubwayz team, no lengthy presentation, just a clear look at what’s live and what it means for your operation.

Book your free demo → hubwayz.com/book-a-demo
Learn more about TOP → www.touroperationplatform.com

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “quoting hotels for a group tour” actually involve?

Quoting hotels for a group means checking availability and pricing across multiple properties for the requested dates and group size, then building that into a rate offer. For groups of 20 or more, this often means contacting many hotels at once and waiting for responses before a quote can go out.

How does Hubwayz make group tour quoting hotels faster?

Within TOP’s existing workflow, operators can now pull live hotel rates and real-time availability from Hubwayz directly, for the hotels connected through the integration. There’s no separate inquiry to send and no reply to wait for, for that part of the sourcing.

What’s the difference between TOP’s inquiry tool and Hubwayz’s live inventory?

TOP’s inquiry tool sends availability requests to a batch of hotels and waits for replies, which can take hours or days. Hubwayz’s live inventory provides real-time rates and availability that update continuously, with no inquiry needed for the hotels in that network.

What is a group tour operation system, and do I need one?

A group tour operation system is software that manages the full cycle of group tour business, such as sourcing hotels, building offers, handling reservations, and accounting. TOP is one such system, used by more than 300 operators, and now connects to Hubwayz for live rates and availability on the hotels where that data is available, alongside TOP’s own tools for sourcing that still needs direct contact with a hotel.