Our Commercial Director Henrik Lykke Hansen's 25 years at Procon

Henrik Lykke Hansen, Commercial Director

Henrik Lykke Hansen, is the Commercial Director of Procon Solution A/S, managing and directing the sales and marketing functions. Henrik is responsible for sales and account management, identifying new market opportunities, and directing marketing communications.

This past week, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my 25^th anniversary at Procon Solution A/S.

During this time, I have been fortunate to form many friendships with clients, partners and colleagues worldwide. I have witnessed how Procon has developed and evolved, and I am proud to look back at  Procon’s contribution to the travel sector.

During my 25 years at Procon I have had different roles within Procon. I debuted in 1995 as an account manager, where I was assigned to three of our major Scandinavian clients (Maersk Travel, CWT Denmark and Fly Specialisten Norway) back then.

As for big notable moments and events that shaped the company, I have to point to the years leading up to year 2000, where a number of legacy systems were pulled off the market and creating the opportunity for a stronger international expansion. In the UK market Procon gained a significant number of new clients, including Instone Aviation, Britannic Travel and Ayscough Travel. Nowadays we are considered a local provider for the UK/Ireland market, as we have added the necessary local supplier content and general functionality required for these market.

Also around year 2000 the “commission cut” was introduced by the airlines creating a need for a new business model for the travel agencies. The commission based model was replaced by a transaction fee structure, where ProTAS very soon became a front-runner for customer fee management functionality.

Another milestone was when we in 2010 changed Procon’s business model from being a typical license provider to a full-service provider. Responding to the increasing demand from the travel agencies Procon introduced the option of hosting our clients back office system infrastructure, so they could focus on their core services. Nowadays 90% of our clients have a hosting service agreement with us - either as a SaaS agreement or housing agreement.

From a market perspective, a lot has happened over time. For example, how the role of credit card companies have changed from being solely batch-orientated in their processing to include significant MIS information. Our cooperation with Airplus over my 25 years in the company has also been inspiring, maturing our relationship in Frankfurt to include all local offices in the EMEA region.

In recent years, the main topic has been the introduction of NDC. Sadly up to now, it has been more marketing than a real product from the airlines. Until the airlines manage to establish an infrastructure and functionality for their NDC content, the travel agencies will be better of using the traditional GDS from a customer perspective.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people I have met over the years. It has been rewarding and a pleasure to meet, work and talk with all of you, and I look forward to working every day with our team. I may not continue for another 25 years, but less will also do!

Lastly, I hope that you all are staying healthy and safe during these uncertain times with the Covid-19 pandemic.

(On the picture: Managing Director, Jesper Just (left) together with Commercial Director, Henrik Lykke Hansen (right))