How Travel & Hospitality Firms Use Salesforce to Redefine Customer Experiences

Publish date:

• 24th September, 2025

Excellent customer service is required for a pleasant travel experience.  Customers want to feel appreciated for who they are and what they enjoy, and they want unique care.  This expectation highlights the need for more tailored communication and experiences.  Marketing, sales, and customer support must all be approached in a consistent and coordinated manner.

There is a constant need for flexible solutions that can support personalized planning, bookings, and customer service. Salesforce is a vital technology for the travel and hospitality industry, providing a dynamic CRM platform tailored to the specific needs of this sector.

Salesforce helps travel agencies improve their operations and customer interactions. It provides capabilities for sales and marketing automation, data analysis, and feature customization.  These capabilities enhance efficiency and creativity, enabling agencies to craft memorable experiences while gaining a competitive edge.

In this blog post, we will examine the key benefits of utilizing Salesforce for the travel and hospitality industry.  We will also explore solutions that can be built on the Salesforce platform to enhance interactions with travel agencies, tour operators, customers, partners, and suppliers.

How Salesforce Helps Travel Agents Drive Success

Travel agents face challenges with scattered customer data, missing real-time information, and broken communication channels. They can find solutions to these issues using Salesforce CRM.

Salesforce is a platform that helps you manage customers, automate marketing, and analyze data all in one place.

Leading travel and hospitality companies are leveraging Salesforce products to enhance their operations, including Caesars Entertainment, Hotel Tonight, Cleartrip, and Anantara Vacation Club. To improve various aspects of their services, they utilize tools such as CRM Analytics, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Experience Cloud.

Why Salesforce CRM Matters for Travel and Hospitality Businesses

Salesforce Sales Cloud enables businesses to store data, track client preferences, and manage bookings. It provides real-time access to client information, enabling individualized marketing and targeted communications, as well as data analysis to enhance business performance.

Salesforce CRM allows multiple users to access and collaborate on information securely. This quick access to data helps improve productivity.

Discover the main challenges travel and hospitality agents face and see how Salesforce Sales Cloud helps them address these issues.

Challenges in Travel & Hospitality and How Salesforce CRM Solves Them

Personalized Guest Experiences

Travel agents can create comprehensive customer profiles using Salesforce CRM. These profiles include past reservations, preferences, and interactions. Agents can deliver individualized services and messages by utilizing this information.  Every visitor feels appreciated and has a better overall experience as a result.

Smarter Customer Data Management

Salesforce Sales Cloud consolidates data from various sources into a single, secure platform. It keeps customer information accurate and up-to-date, making it easy for teams to access whenever needed.

Streamlined Operations with Automation

Built-in automation tools make everyday tasks easier, such as making reservations, sending confirmations, and following up on them. By reducing manual work, these tools streamline processes, enabling staff to focus on delivering exceptional guest satisfaction.

Consistent and Engaging Communication

Salesforce helps businesses connect with travelers through email, social media, and SMS before, during, and after their trips. Timely and personal communication builds strong relationships and trust.

Data-Driven Revenue Growth

Salesforce’s analytics and reporting provide clear insights into how guests spend money, trends in bookings, and market changes. These insights enable more informed pricing decisions and enhance revenue opportunities.

Connected Systems for Smooth Operations

The platform has easy integrations with event management software, booking systems, and accounting tools. This link reduces errors such as double bookings and helps maintain consistent availability and pricing.

Flexibility in a Changing Market

Salesforce provides adaptable solutions that enable travel and hospitality businesses to quickly adjust to shifting customer demands, industry trends, and emerging technological advancements.  It keeps them one step ahead of their rivals.

Salesforce provides tools to help the travel industry address its challenges and enhance various business areas.

How Service Cloud Helps Deliver Faster, Better Customer Service

Salesforce Service Cloud helps businesses gain a deeper understanding of their customers. It provides experiences that exceed what travelers expect. By automating request management, the travel and hospitality industry can improve customer support. It enables faster and more personalized support, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and retention.

Implementing Service Cloud enabled a vacation ownership company to manage an increase in customer queries efficiently. Improved communication across languages and channels led to faster response times and higher customer satisfaction. Previously, the company relied on a manual email-based system, which became inefficient and difficult to manage as the customer base expanded rapidly.

This transition to Service Cloud led to substantial growth in their customer base, significantly reduced response times, and consistently maintained high customer satisfaction scores, even in markets known for their demanding standards.

How Salesforce Simplifies Managing Business Partnerships

Salesforce’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system and partner portals from Experience Cloud enable travel professionals to work more effectively with partners and affiliates. It improves communication and drives success for everyone involved.

For example, a major beverage company improved collaboration with its external partners and consumers by using Salesforce Experience Cloud. This platform enabled more effective communication with distributors and helped create customer and consumer communities across various brands, enhancing engagement and relationship-building.

Salesforce Experience Cloud for Effortless Booking Management

Salesforce Experience Cloud helps travel and hospitality businesses create custom web portals. These portals allow clients to easily manage and track their reservations, check availability in real-time, and directly handle booking cancellations and changes from the platform.

How Salesforce Marketing Cloud Drives Superior Marketing Results

Travel agencies can run targeted campaigns and customize guest connections across multiple channels with Salesforce's powerful marketing tools, such as Marketing Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), which promote repeat business and customer loyalty.

For example, an adventure travel company boosted customer engagement by leveraging Salesforce Marketing Cloud. They now send timely, relevant messages and create personalized journeys that enhance interactions ahead of trips, such as their Antarctic tours. The use of AI-powered email recommendations and integration with analytics tools helps deliver customized trip suggestions, resulting in email open rates that are well above average.

How CRM Analytics Empowers Strategic Business Growth with Salesforce

Travel businesses can use the CRM Analytics tool (formerly known as Einstein Analytics and Tableau CRM) to gain data-driven insights. It helps them make better decisions, spot trends, forecast demand, and develop wise investment and marketing strategies. The tool also allows businesses to understand guest behavior, set optimal pricing, and create targeted loyalty programs. These actions can lead to improved returns on investment and more accurate predictions of future trends.

The whole Salesforce product family has other common advantages over traditional CRM for the travel industry:

• Customization: The Salesforce platform is flexible, allowing travel and hospitality firms to customize its products to meet their specific needs.

• Integration: You can enhance Salesforce for travel and hospitality by connecting it to other platforms through APIs. It includes flight booking systems, local event databases, and over 4,500 applications available on the AppExchange app marketplace. These connections provide agents and customers with real-time information and added services.

• Security: Salesforce follows over 40 global rules to protect sensitive data for clients and partners. It ensures compliance and helps maintain trust.

• Regular Platform Updates and Maintenance: The Salesforce platform helps the travel industry grow and innovate by upgrading its features three times a year. It offers flexible solutions that adapt to market changes, technology advancements, and ongoing development.

• Platform Training and Support: Trailhead is a training platform designed to help users quickly learn new solutions. It offers a wide range of videos, guides, and educational materials from Salesforce and its partners. This variety of resources makes it easier for users to adopt newly implemented solutions.

• Expert Community Engagement: A strong community of Salesforce users and developers, known as Trailblazers, drives innovation and helps each other adapt quickly to changes in the market. This active exchange of knowledge keeps the helpful platform and practical over time. Additionally, many certified Salesforce partners are available on AppExchange. They can help businesses choose the best consultancy based on ratings, customer reviews, expertise, and location.

Meeting Travel Industry Demands through Salesforce Customization

Salesforce must be customized to meet the unique requirements of travel and hospitality companies. Due to the platform's adaptability, businesses can design workflows that precisely mirror their actual processes and utilize customized features to address specific issues.

Here are a few examples of CRM for travel industry areas where customization can maximize the platform’s potential:

• Customize Reports and Dashboards: Travel agents can customize dashboards and reports in Salesforce. It helps them view real-time information about the business's performance, customer booking patterns, and key operational data.

• Leverage AI-powered Analytics: Companies can enhance Salesforce for travel agents by using Salesforce AI and Customer Service AI. These tools, powered by the Einstein 1 Platform, help predict trends, forecast demand, identify booking patterns, and refine pricing strategies.

• Integrate Loyalty Program: Organizations can create custom modules in Salesforce to manage loyalty programs. These modules help track member activities and automate rewards. This approach improves customer retention and satisfaction.

• Automate Routine Tasks: Salesforce can help professionals in the travel and hospitality industry streamline processes such as booking confirmations, pre-arrival planning, and post-stay follow-ups. Agents can devote more time to essential customer interactions thanks to this automation.

• Create Customer Journeys: Businesses can create clear customer journey maps in Salesforce to visualize and understand each step of the customer’s experience, from the initial inquiry to feedback after a purchase. This information can help you improve services and actions that enhance the overall travel experience.

• Implement Post-Trip Feedback Collection: Experts in hospitality and travel can customize Salesforce for the travel industry. It will help automate the collection of feedback after trips. By linking this information to customer profiles, businesses can enhance their services and refine their marketing efforts for the future.

• Set Up Proactive Alerts: Firms can set up real-time alerts in Salesforce for travel disruptions, weather changes, or special promotions. It helps agents to inform and assist travelers quickly.

• Connect AI-Powered Chatbots: Companies can utilize AI chatbots integrated with Salesforce to deliver 24/7 customer service. These chatbots can answer common questions, help with reservations, and offer personalized travel suggestions.

If your Salesforce solution for hospitality doesn’t match your business needs, you may need help from Salesforce consultants. They can assist with updating your CRM to meet your requirements better, optimizing the platform, and customizing it to suit your business needs.

All consultancies are unique, and so are their services. Codleo is a Summit Salesforce Partner, specializing in consulting and developing products for the AppExchange. They have a strong history of delivering custom Salesforce solutions that vary in complexity and scope.

As your trusted Salesforce consulting partner, we help you create a tailored implementation roadmap and customization strategy that addresses your specific workflow and system needs.

With our in-depth knowledge and extensive experience in the travel industry, we effectively address complex business and technology challenges. We focus our efforts on critical areas, including marketing, sales, service, data and analytics, as well as architecture and integration.

A good web portal is essential for any travel company’s technology tools. Salesforce’s Experience Cloud enables numerous customizations and provides the necessary resources to create a seamless web portal that integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM. It’s worth exploring the different solutions that can be built on this platform.

How Salesforce Web Portals Transform Travel and Hospitality Services

As a vital part of the global economy, the travel sector is increasingly leveraging cutting-edge technology to remain competitive. In the travel and hospitality industries, Salesforce Experience Cloud—formerly known as Community Cloud—provides a flexible platform for creating interconnected digital experiences.

It helps travel businesses create custom websites, portals, and apps that improve engagement for customers, partners, and employees.

Custom web travel portals built on Salesforce will benefit everyone in the travel business. Customers will enjoy personalized online experiences that simplify travel planning and management. Travel agents and partners will experience improved booking processes, enhanced collaboration, and increased sales and promotion of travel experiences.

Hospitality staff and management can communicate more effectively, manage tasks more efficiently, and enhance service delivery.

Here are the ways to develop Salesforce Experience Cloud to meet the needs of each group:

What Solutions Can Be Built on Top of Salesforce Experience Cloud for Travel Agents

• Custom Travel Portals: Organizations can create customized websites where customers can browse travel options, book services such as flights, hotels, and tours, and manage their travel plans. These websites can offer personalized suggestions based on customers' preferences and past travel experiences.

• Self-Service Support Centers: Agencies can create support centers that help travelers. These centers can answer questions, provide travel guides, and offer real-time updates about bookings and travel advisories.

• Agent and Partner Portals: Travel companies can create online platforms for travel agents and partners. These platforms allow them to access sales tools, resources, customer data, and track commissions. It makes booking easier and helps teams work together on travel packages.

• Training Platforms: Companies can build training platforms to teach agents or employees about new destinations, services, and booking tools. This way, they can give the best advice and options to customers.

• Internal Collaboration Platforms: To enhance collaboration and communication between employees in various departments or locations, organizations can develop internal platforms. Tools for managing tasks, scheduling shifts, and exchanging knowledge and skills can all be found on these platforms.

• Operational Dashboards: Businesses can create custom dashboards in these portal solutions to provide better visibility into key metrics for customers, partners, and employees, including actions, revenue, and agent performance metrics. It enables them to identify areas that require improvement and enhance operational transparency.

Codleo will help you create a customized self-service portal that gives your customers 24/7 access to their profiles. They can access their information from anywhere, and their personal data is safe. It includes travel itineraries, past travel information, and payment details.

Our team will build a secure and customizable web platform using Salesforce Experience Cloud. This platform will help you deliver smooth and safe experiences in the travel and hospitality industry. We aim to support you at every step of the journey, providing travel guidance that ensures travelers feel secure and confident upon arrival.

We can create custom booking portals, apps, and online platforms using Salesforce for independent travel management. These solutions will improve access for customers, travel agents, and partners. We will also ensure that these systems integrate seamlessly with your existing business tools for easy communication, payment processing, and inventory management.

Do you need help improving your Salesforce CRM or creating a custom web portal for your travel management? Schedule a free consulting call with us.

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About the Author

Anand Sharma

Anand is a Salesforce Evangelist, joined the Salesforce ecosystem in 2014 helping customers to be successful with Salesforce, and joined Codleo to share the goodness with even more developers all around the world. He is based in New Delhi, with his wife, and he tries to escape summers every chance he gets.