Carlos Frias, Director General of All Mexico Pass

Carlos Frias, Director General of All Mexico Pass
By Jose Carlos de Santiago

All Mexico Pass’ goal is to ease the bookings from Europe, Asia or Latin America for people trying to visit Mexico on a budget, something which is pulled off by signing deals with low-cost providers that are not on the GDSs. Caribbean News Digital talked to Mr. Frias about these online operations, the development of this modality and methods to get the job done as far as the operations are concerned.

Carlos, we’d like you to tell us about your new company and its activities.
We have created a new company named Global Travel Pass.It’sa Wholesaler-Retailer agency, which distributes Latin American products in Europe, Asia and other markets out of the reach of local Low cost companies.

All Mexico Pass is among the new activities the group carries out. What is it all about?
All Mexico Pass was born with the idea of creating a Mexican flight-and-service consolidator to be offered overseas, mainly in Europe and Asia.

It works based on service coupons, the product consists of 8 virtual coupons, which can be unitarily used or linked to our booking system in order to buy products provided by Low cost airlines in Mexico: autobuses, transfer, hotels, excursions, etc.

What is a flight-and-service consolidator?
There are many low cost airlines in Mexicowith services and products that are only provided in the country. They can’t be offered abroad because they are not included in any GDS or globalizer.

Our idea was consolidating that product, agglutinating it into the same booking system and creating a travel coupon book to be bought by tourists, travel agencies or tour operators, and each coupon includes independent services. Some of them can be used on Interjet, Viva Aerobus, some others with ADO for autobus services, hotels, etc.

If I want to buy a ticket to fly from Madrid to Mexicoand, once I’m there, be able to fly on local airlines, how could I do it through All Mexico Pass?
You just need to visit any travel agency and ask for an All Mexico Pass or click on www.allmexicopass.com and organize your product. We recommend several routes. For example, we could recommend you a Mexico-Oaxaca flight on Viva Aerobus; followed by an Oaxaca-Tuxtla by land with ADO; Tuxtla-Villa Hermosa also with ADOand, finally, Villa Hermosa-Mexicowith two coupons to fly on Interjet. The total cost would be 360 euros.

What’s the economic advantage for customers?
It’s very important because these are low cost companies that offer pretty low promotional fares. For instance, Mexico-Cancun on Viva Aerobus approximately costs a third of the fare you could buy in Europeon AeroMexico.

Is there any deal so passengers buying tickets through All Mexico Pass are allowed to fly with the same luggage they carried from Europe?
We’re mainly working these kinds of deals with Interjet and it allows the same load that European airlines do. However, in the case of Viva Aerobus, airline with the same characteristics of the European low cost we deal with, offers a specific product called Vip Access that allows one bag with the same weight of those accepted by European companies, preferential access when boarding, so we provide preferential treatment to European tourists for a supplement that is already included in the same fare.

If you take into account the experience of your company, how do you see the future of travel agencies and payment systems via Internet?
The market is extraordinarily changed. Internet has changed our world. For example, five years ago Nokia was the leader in terms of mobile telephones;it was ranked 1 when it comes to selling and telephone operators worldwide. Nevertheless, a migration to smartphones has taken place in the last five years, and these phones promote online shopping all over the world.

Travel agents who don’t stick to those new technologies or count on websites ready to sell any product will fade away. You get specialized or disappear, that’s what is going on. Nowadays, travelers have more access to the information and are able to book, check and organize their trip just by using their phones.

The 60 percentof Britons by their trips through smartphones or tablets, and the 75 percentof the American market carry out seek for advice and prepare their trips through this type of equipment.

We don’t follow that pace in the Latin American market, which is marked by the beat of the different countries, but I can say that somewhere between 25 and 30 percent do.

What would bethe risk of hiring a standard payment channel, from any bank, for a website that sells air and hotel products?
The main risk for any company using standard payment channels is that, nowadays, passengers and people willing to harm the company by a making fraudulent purchase can gain access to the company’s record via Internet. That’s the main risk.

Cloned credit cards or any kind of purchase via Internet can bring about a megabuck fraud just in minutes and the most worrisome aspect is that the airline, if it is the case, is responsible of providing the purchased product, even though a fraudulent credit card might have been used.

The companies are trying to sell through their own websites because the costs are lower as they don’t hire GDS or any other globalizing service. As for the payment channel, it can be subcontracted and a guarantee against frauds can be obtained if paying a little more. If any fraud is committed, the company providing the service takes full responsibility, not the banks, which are vulnerable to frauds.

There are safe payment systems such as PayPal, which are expensive but provide guarantees due to their different security levels. In that case, you must choose where to sell in order to obtain a margin of profits in terms of electronic trade.

What are the countries with the highest fraud levels?
The fraud can’t be identified by the origin, but by the company that has been damaged and I don’t have the information regarding to the countries with the highest fraud levels.

What about the IP blocking systems as protection measure?
One of the website protection measures is the IP detection that blocks certain countries and even directs pieces of advertisement, so they can only be seen in some countries.

Each country counts on one identifier and each computer located in certain countries, connected to the Internet, possesses an identifier that makes it visible all over the world. Thus, by carrying out an IP blocking per country, zone or region, or even specific computers, we can protect ourselves from fraudulent sells.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I’d like to add that we are going to showcase the product in Fitur, we’re going to introduce Best Day’sproduct, an important provider in Mexico that will give us hotels, transfers and excursions, and, as Interjet has increased its routes, we can also offer routes to Guatemala with hotels and services, as well as routes to Havana.