Jamie Biesiada
Modernizing a travel agency’s tech stack is no easy task, but it’s one that Natasha Mendal, head of growth at Forest Travel in North Miami Beach, has taken up.
The agency began in 1986 when her father, David Mendal, acquired a small agency in downtown Miami (David is a serial entrepreneur, also founding companies like Ultimate Jet Vacations).
Forest Travel specializes in global travel and, more specifically, travel between Latin America and the U.S. Its location in Miami helps serve that important client base, Natasha said, and everyone who works at the agency is bilingual.
Natasha joined the family business last year. She started her career with travel advertising platform and marketing agency Sojern, which buys travel data from big companies like airlines, then uses that data to do targeted advertising for other travel companies. After six years working in account management and sales, she moved on to a consulting role where she worked with tech startups.
She most frequently worked with software-as-a-service products in the seed or series A stages of funding and helped build their sales strategies. She did that for 15-20 tech startups over more than three years before the company was acquired.
Natasha saw this as the perfect opportunity to join Forest Travel, utilizing her experience to initiate what she calls the agency’s “digital transformation.”
She quickly identified the need to find a CRM system that could house all of Forest Travel’s client data. She tried popular platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot but found that they’re just not built for travel.
Forest Travel was previously using Trams Back Office. Tres Technologies owns Trams after having purchased it from Sabre in 2021, and while it is still supporting older products like Trams, it is developing a new CRM system under the Tres banner.
Natasha spoke with several other CRMs out there but ultimately decided to transition to Tres.
“They’ve been super collaborative, and they’re constantly adding more to the platform and very open about us giving them ideas and adding more to it,” she said.
But the really exciting part, she said, is getting all of Forest Travel’s data organized.
“What I can do when I have that is very powerful,” Natasha said.
She could, for instance, easily look up all the clients who booked a trip to Japan last year. Then, she could drill down to spend at a particular property and negotiate with suppliers.
It’s also useful for marketing, she said, knowing things like which clients tend to book Europe regularly.
“Once you have all this data, the sky’s the limit,” she said. “It’s exciting, because there’s so much more we can do, and having it organized is going to be huge.”
She’s also talking with other technology providers who might be meet Forest Travel’s needs.
When to buy into a tech tool
That’s key to Natasha’s advice for any other agencies considering embarking on digital transformations of their own, after getting their data in order: “Do we just bring on a tool because it looks cool and we figure out what to do with it, or do we first see, is there a need?”
A new technology tool should solve an existing problem or challenge in an agency, she said. For Forest Travel, Tres was “a no-brainer” to corral its data. Others would need to fill other gaps.
“It’s always like, OK, where’s the need?” Natasha said. “How are we doing it now? Is it a mess? Is it a challenge? What could actually help make this easier?”
Going forward, she’ll look to integrate AI where it’s functional and applicable for advisors. She’ll also continue to evaluate new technologies to see if they’re the right fit.
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