By Travel agents are often asked for inventory reports on their clients’ inventory system. The answers are usually fairly typical and predictable—hotels, restaurants, and retail stores.
A couple years ago I was asked to design a inventory system for a travel agent. This was the first time I’ve ever worked with a travel agent and I was pleasantly surprised by how well the system I created actually worked.
Its a nice system because it uses a lot of the same items that are used in most travel agents, like checkbooks, credit cards, and keys. Its also designed to be cheap and easy to use, so you can be as lazy as you want. To make it even cheaper, I used a simple inventory system Ive created for my own travel agency. I used the same basic system but added a couple of extra attributes for each item.
The system I created is called “inventory”. The attributes are the same as in most travel agents, but instead of being a list of item names, it is a numeric list of numbers that corresponds to the items. So instead of having a list of airline tickets, I have a list of airline numbers. To add an item, you add a number to your list of airline numbers and the item is added to your list of airline tickets.
As a travel agency, inventory is critical. You want to be able to track what is in the inventory of a particular person and be able to check which one has what and when. If you want to find out how many bottles of wine a person has, you can only do that by asking for their inventory. The same goes for a ticket or car or anything.
This is all a lot of work for the travel agent, but it’s also a good way to track which airline has what. If you want to know how many bottles of wine or the status of your flight, you can ask the airline. If you want to know whether a car is on the road, you can usually check your vehicle’s inventory.
You can’t ask for information about a person’s inventory on the phone, but you can ask for information about a person’s inventory online. And you can even ask for a person’s inventory through the website. If you want to know the status of a car you can look in the car’s inventory. If you want to know how many bottles of wine a person has, you can ask them for their inventory.
This is how we know the inventory of a person is not empty.
When you know a person has an empty bottle, you can fill it with whatever you want. But once you know they have wine you can either drink it or give it away. Or you can look for someone who has wine and fill it for them.
The inventory system is really a tool we employ at travel agencies. When a person is buying a car, airline, or hotel, our system allows them to quickly buy a bottle of wine and fill it with whatever they want. The same is true for buying a rental car, hotel, or airline. When you see a person with an empty bottle you can fill it with whatever you want. Once you know they have wine, you can either drink it or give it away.
