Update - JDA Software

Travel
Technology
Volume 9, Issue 21
October 12, 2010
The newsletter for
distribution professionals
Update
Travelport’s Universal API enables
aggregation of multi-source content
Inside this issue:
HomeAway acquires software
partner
2
Thomas Cook, The Co-operative
Group to merge travel shops
2
Merging carriers need to reassess
revenue management needs
3
As flash sale sites proliferate,
hotels need to be choosy
4
The view from the hotel sector of
bundling, unbundling
6
‘Expect an airline to act’ on credit
card fees within 12 months
7
World news briefing
10
In this corner
There may be some
value in telling people that
bad guys may attack them
in any of several countries
but nobody should cancel a
trip because it’s a “nonspecific” threat. We try to
figure out what earthly good
that does anybody, but it
eludes us — unless the
point is that if something
bad happens, those in the
know can say, “Well, we
warned you.”
Gee, thanks for that.
Travelport released its Universal
API, a technology interface that will
enable third-party developers, online
travel agencies, travel agencies and consolidators to aggregate content from a
variety of sources.
The Universal API can aggregate
content and related services from GDSs,
low-cost carriers and high-speed rail
operators. It also works side by side
with existing APIs.
In essence, the Universal API will
enable travel distributors to create or
supplement their own front-end systems
for deployment on the Web, on travel
agency desktops or within mobile applications.
It is, in fact, the core engine of the
Universal Desktop, Travelport’s new
agency system that will be rolled out
next year.
Bookings made for products and
services aggregated through the API can
be synchronized in the Travelport Universal Record, an off-host structured
database.
It will store data for all segments
booked through the Universal API, regardless of content source, with full synchronization back to the GDS PNR to
maintain mid- and back-office integration.
Phil Donathy, product manager of ecommerce services for Travelport, told
TTU that content is being phased in
gradually and the API is being phased in
geographically.
Initially, content from Galileo and
Apollo, several rail services in the Benelux countries and Germany and a
“substantial” number of low-cost carri(Continued on page 3)
Delta reveals (a bit of) its merchandising plan
GDS companies should be “forced
to bargain for access” to new ancillary
services, Delta Air Lines told the U.S.
Transportation Department.
In comments on a proposed rule that
would require airlines to provide optional service fee data to GDSs, the carrier said it is “considering the GDSs as a
distribution channel for ancillary services” and expects to negotiate with
them for access. But Delta added that
GDSs have “not effectively demon-
strated to airlines the technological capability to sell ancillary services.”
Their primary capability is to distribute air travel based on price and
schedule, it said.
“There is no differentiation based
on customer preferences or value proposition offered by the airline,” Delta said.
Ancillary products must be delivered in a “far more targeted and personalized fashion,” it said.
(Continued on page 4)
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 2
Travel
Technology
Update
Published every other Tuesday by
AMC Communications
International Inc.
P.O. Box 220432
Saint Louis, MO 63122-0032
(314) 965-2521
Editor and Publisher
Michele McDonald
[email protected]
Subscriptions
AMC Communications
International, Inc.
P.O. Box 220432
Saint Louis, MO 63122-0032
(314) 965-2521
[email protected]
Annual subscription available in PDF
format only by e-mail: $450. Site licenses are available; for information, email [email protected]. To
pay by credit card (American Express,
Discover, MasterCard or Visa), visit Air
Transport World’s website at
atwonline.com.
For single copies, send a check for
US$30 to AMC Communications International Inc., P.O. Box 220432, Saint
Louis, MO 63122-0032.
ISSN 1539-9257
Copyright ©2010
Reproduction by any means is strictly
prohibited without the express permission of the publisher.
AMC
Communications International Inc.
Michele McDonald, president
HomeAway acquires software partner
HomeAway Inc., which operates an online vacation rental marketplace, acquired Instant Software
Inc., a vacation rental management
software provider and one of its
software partners. Terms were not
disclosed.
The deal will
expand the use of
ISI’s professional
management software within the
HomeAway customer base. ISI has
approximately 1,400 property management customers, while more
than 4,030 vacation rental owners
use HomeAway websites for distribution.
HomeAway has partnered with
ISI for several years to provide
electronic distribution and online
booking to professional managers
using their software through ISILink. HomeAway plans to invest
further in this capability, making
the service accessible on a variety
of distribution platforms.
HomeAway also formed a new
team to oversee
development, sales
and
third-party
distribution agreements for property management
software. The group is headed by
John Banczak, vice president and
general manager, and includes ISI
and HomeAway’s two property
management businesses for the
B&B industry, Webervations and
RezOvation.
ISI will continue to operate
from its offices in Denver and Basalt, Colo., and in Pensacola, Fla.
Cook, Co-operative to merge retail offices in U.K.
Thomas Cook Group plc and
The Co-operative Group, which
supplies products and services to a
consortium of more than 148 independent travel agents, agreed to a
merger of their retail travel and
foreign exchange businesses.
The deal will create the U.K.’s
largest retail travel network with
more than 1,200 shops and an enhanced position in foreign exchange.
It also will increase the inhouse distribution of Thomas
Cook’s own travel products from
69% to around 80%.
The new company will be 70%
owned by Thomas Cook and 30%
by The Co-operative Group
The merged entity will not include Thomas Cook’s online travel
business, ThomasCook.com, or any
of its U.K. tour operating businesses.
Sabre acquires flight-planning solution provider
Sabre Holdings acquired f:wz, a
provider of flight planning solutions. Sabre said the acquisition will
enhance its Sabre AirCentre Enterprise Operations suite of flight plan-
ning products and services.
F:wz, a Vienna, Austria-based
subsidiary of Dubai Aerospace Enterprises, will become part of Sabre
Airline Solutions.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 3
Merging carriers need to reassess their RM needs
Much attention has been paid to
the options for Southwest Airlines’
new reservations system, but
there’s another piece of technology
that almost certainly will get some
attention if the carrier’s proposed
acquisition of AirTran is approved:
its revenue management system.
Merging carriers meld their
systems in different ways, according to Bill Kotrba, senior director of
industry strategy at JDA Software.
Kotrba was at Northwest when
it merged with Delta. The merged
entity went with Delta’s reservations system and Northwest’s revenue management system, which
“made for a more complicated integration issue,” he said.
For point-to-point carriers,
revenue management is relatively
straightforward,
They typically use a “legbased” system that analyzes nonstop demand between two points,
Kotrba said. For example, it would
measure Chicago-Atlanta demand,
but not Chicago-Atlanta-Fort
Lauderdale.
An origin-and-destination system, on the other hand, would look
at the value of the total trip to the
network, Kotrba said.
Southwest has been planning a
revenue management upgrade for
some time. If the
acquisition goes
ahead, it will operate to international
destinations; it will
acquire a much
larger amount of
Bill Kotrba
connecting opportunities at Atlanta,
where it will compete with Delta, a
formidable rival, and it will operate
two aircraft types for the first time.
“It suddenly becomes a far
more complex undertaking,”
Kotrba said.
Travelport’s Universal API pulls in multi-source content
(Continued from page 1)
ers are available. Worldspan content will be added next year.
The API has been introduced in
the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany,
Italy, the Nordic countries and
South Africa.
Distributors and developers can
gradually supplement their existing
content feeds and functionality as
they transition to the new content
resources and tools made available
through Travelport Universal API.
Eventually, they can turn off some
of those existing feeds and reduce
their costs, Donathy said.
The API opens up new possibilities third-party development and
for distribution of airlines’ merchandising efforts.
Instead of coding to multiple
APIs, a developer can code to a
single solution.
“At the moment, the industry is
pretty fragmented in the techno-
logical approach to ancillary services,” Donathy said.
Some carriers plan to file ancillary service pricing through ATPCO, the airline-owned company
that provides fare information to
GDSs.
Others, such as American Air-
lines, have said that they will provide ancillary service data to travel
agencies only through direct connections or third-party agency front
ends such as Farelogix’ SPRK platform.
Filing via ATPCO would not
allow the carrier to integrate its customer segmentation data into its
merchandising strategy, American
says.
“We want to be future-proof
and hide that complexity,” Donathy
said. “We’ll pull this content in
wherever it’s provided.”
The Universal API will be able
to flow the aggregated content “all
through one pipe,” he said.
But commercial agreements
between suppliers and aggregators
are still required, he said.
Asked whether American would
consider the Universal API acceptable as a means of connecting, Cory
Garner, director of merchandising
strategy, said American is
“indifferent to which technologies
agencies use to connect to our direct
connect.”
The Universal API can, in theory, pull in content from Sabre or
Amadeus.
Donathy said the technology is
there. The commercial agreements,
however, are not.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 4
As flash sale sites proliferate, hotels must be choosy
Now that there are at least four
“private sale” sites that sell travel,
hotels need to ensure that they
don’t “put their eggs in too many
Henry Harteveldt
baskets,” Henry Harteveldt, vice
president and principal analyst of
Forrester Research, said.
So far, “we’re not seeing pricing on any of these sites that is just
stupid,” he said.
“Hotels are tossing in valueadds or offering products that
aren’t normally sold to John and
Jane Q. Public, like high-end
suites.”
But as the sites proliferate, hotels will have to get a handle on
how much of the business they
bring in is incremental and how
much it will dilute their revenues,
he said.
Expedia Inc.’s SniqueAway
recently joined Jetsetter, Rue La La
and Voyage Privé in offering “flash
sales” – hotel deals that must be
purchased within a narrow
window of time for stays
within a specific
period – to their
members.
Becoming a member requires
an invitation, but that is easily obtained by simply requesting on one
on the company’s website. No one
is likely to be turned away.
“You have to be careful about
the organizations you work with to
ensure that you reach the right
demographics,” Harteveldt said.
“Take a look at who’s been there so
far. Are these hotels you compete
Delta: GDSs must be ‘forced to bargain’
(Continued from page 1)
“Delta intends to distribute
new products and services based on
customer preferences. The price of
these products may also differ
based on criteria such as frequent
flyer status or fare paid.”
Delta will consider negotiating
access to these products if the
GDSs “develop and demonstrate
the capability to distribute ancillary
services in a way that allows for
this personalization,” the carrier
said.
The GDSs should not be allowed to use the regulatory process
to bypass negotiations with airlines,
Delta said.
Delta’s comments were the first
indication that the carrier’s merchandising strategy is similar to
American’s.
American has said that it plans
to incorporate its proprietary customer segmentation data in determining what products and services
to offer customers and at what
price.
against? That should help you determine whether you should be on
the site.”
And it won’t look good for the
hotel if it makes too many appearances on one or more of the sites,
he said.
“The art of revenue management comes into play more than the
science,” he said.
“Hotel managers have to be
careful about pricing: Is the rate
lower than it needs to be?” They
also don’t
want
to
bring in customers who won’t bring
in more revenue, he said.
If customers are simply focused
on the deal, they are not likely to
come back. Nor are they likely to
spend much at the property.
“Hotels need to be disciplined
in their approach to these sales,”
Harteveldt said. “You don’t want to
be a flash sale slut.”
HBSi and Genares
expand collaboration
HBSi, an IBS Group company,
and Genares Worldwide Reservation Services expanded their relationship to add GDS connectivity
for HBSi customers.
The two companies have
worked together since 2007 to provide connectivity to key travel websites to Genares customers.
HBSi’s iDemand Gateway platform allows hotels to connect and
manage their electronic distribution
through a single connection.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 5
Sabre expands Contract Optimization Services globally
Sabre Travel Network is expanding
its Contract Optimization Services, designed to driver preferred air carrier
sales, to other continents following the
North American launch late last year.
Several agencies have been recruited to
participate in a pilot in Europe.
Part of the Sabre Red solution, Contract Optimization Services helps travel
management companies and their corporate customers manage multiple, overlapping air supplier contracts.
An agency may have four or five
airline supplier agreements with multiple
sales targets for overlapping sets of markets.
When an agent makes a booking,
Contract Optimization Services analyzes
the thousands of possible city-pair, carrier and point-of-sale combinations for
those that will enable the agency to reach
performance goals.
The solution includes three integrated components:
● Sales Planning evaluates supplier
deals and determines ideal sales targets
at the city-pair or flight level.
● Content Customization lets customers tailor their displays, reflecting
market and customer-specific objectives.
● Reporting and Analysis tracks performance on each term and goal for each
supplier agreement, including daily alerts
on big opportunities.
Rate Tiger adds business intelligence reports from GDSs
RateTiger partnered with ReservHotel, a hotel marketing and technology
services company, to provide GDS
Shopping in RateTiger’s Shopper module.
The development allows RTSuite
and RTCorp clients to obtain business
intelligence reports with competitor
rates from GDSs.
RateTiger hotel clients and travel
management companies can access vari-
ous online shopping reports from mulitple GDSs to fine-tune rate strategies
based on up-to-the-minute competitor
price movements.
GDS Shopping is also available as
an integration module in RTConnect,
RateTiger’s XML channel management
gateway.
Rate Tiger also added its 600th integrated distribution channel. More than
120 of the connections are XML-based.
Dolphin Dynamics builds direct link to Eurostar network
Dolphin Dynamics, a provider of
travel agency and tour operator booking
and management solutions, implemented
a direct link with Eurostar’s international
rail network, enabling users of Dolphin’s
reservations module to search, compare
and combine with flights from a GDS or
low-cost carrier within a single screen.
The rail and flight services can be
booked along with accommodation, car
rental, transfers and other ancillary prod-
ucts sourced from third-party suppliers
or from the customer’s direct supplier
contracts hosted on Dolphin’s product
database.
The new connectivity also enables
Dolphin users to book onward connections from Eurostar’s hubs at Paris Gare
Du Nord International, Disneyland Paris
and Brussels using national railway networks in France, Belgium, Germany, the
Netherlands and Switzerland.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 6
The view from the hotel sector on bundling, unbundling
The trend among airlines is
unbundling. For hotels, it’s a very
different story, according to a panel
of experts at The Beat Live business travel conference.
“The trend in hotels is to bundle,” Stephen Fitzgerald, chief operating officer of Sabre Hospitality
Solutions, said. “We used to get a
buck a phone call. Now we try to
capture as much as we can in the
rate.”
Travelers don’t have the same
visceral reaction to hotel charges
that airline fees evoke, the panel
noted. Tom Botts, managing partner
of Hudson Crossing, said, “Most
hotels have been charging for
Cokes forever.”
Andrew Winterton, Carlson
Wagonlit Travel’s president for
suppliers, products and technology,
added that “people kill themselves
over a dollar in airline fees.” But
although travelers aren’t so ratesensitive when it comes to hotels,
they are “very feature-sensitive.”
Michael Boult, chief commercial officer of Lanyon, a provider of
hotel content and expense management solutions, said despite the
bundling, it’s still difficult to get a
handle on hotel spending.
“Companies don’t know what
they spend on hotels,” he said. “The
data doesn’t sync up. The GDS
booking says W Chicago, but the
credit card statement says W
Loop.”
‘It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people. It took
the Internet four years. Nine months after it launched,
Facebook had 100 million users.’
— Dwayne Ingram, executive vice president, Amadeus
‘Stop negotiating. Start innovating.’ Or someone else will.
When Gen Xers replace retiring
baby boomers, they aren’t likely to
put up with technology that costs a
lot but doesn’t do what they want,
Flightcaster founder Evan Konwiser
said.
Konwiser, whose company
tracks when flights are likely to be
delayed, told delegates to The Beat
Live that “managed travel has never
focused on the user experience. It’s
focused on compliance.”
That has left a vacuum, and it’s
being filled by innovators.
“TripIt beat managed travel at
its own game, providing a better
tool,” Konwiser said.
“And why can’t Kayak be the
corporate booking tool? It can be
populated with negotiated rates, and
it can take me to the travel management company’s back end for booking,” he said.
“We need to change the way we
build technology,” he said.
The way travel technology is
structured now is within “walled
gardens, maybe with doors to other
walled gardens,” he said. “Then we
force people to go there.”
In contrast, “Apple’s genius is
not the iPhone; it’s in the ability of
any man, woman or child to develop
an app” for the iPhone, Konwiser
said.
Michael Strauss, chief executive
officer of PASS Consulting’s travel
unit, said the GDS is “the limiting
factor” in travel technology innovation.
And while airlines and GDS
companies continue to do battle,
“other strong players outside the
travel industry
are stepping in,”
he said, citing
Google’s pending acquisition
of ITA Software.
“We have to
stop negotiating
Michael Strauss
and start innovating,” Strauss
said. One way to start would be to
separate inventory management
from e-distribution, “but I realize
that won’t happen,” he said.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 7
‘Expect an airline to act on payment issue’ within a year
A major airline will make “a
significant move in the area of payment in the next 12 months,” according to Chris Vukelich, senior
vice president for the Americas at
eNett International, a provider of
integrated payment solutions for
the travel industry.
Vukelich said airlines have
serious incentives to get out from
Someone has to pay for
the perks and programs
added by credit card
issuers. It’s usually not the
cardholder. It’s the
merchant.
under the ballooning credit card
burden. Speaking at The Beat Live,
a business travel conference, he
said credit card fees have grown
sharply as credit card issuers have
become involved in loyalty programs and premium cards that offer
a range of services and perks not
available to holders of “plain vanilla” cards.
“There has been a significant
increase in the cost of credit card
acceptance in the U.S.,” Vukelich
said.
According to a November 2009
report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, from 1999 to
2009, corporate credit card rates
increased 36% at Visa and 82% at
MasterCard.
Vukelich said the increases
have come as card companies have
introduced products that mimic
American Express programs.
From 1991 to 2009, the increase
in fees for the highest-rate cards –
those with lots of perks and programs – was 54% at Visa and 56%
at MasterCard.
American Express cards were
not included in the study because
they are technically not credit cards,
but their merchant fees are even
higher.
“People like cards,” Vukelich
said. They use them for the financial control, the reporting, out of
habit or for the rebates.
But someone has to pay for the
perks and programs, and it is generally not the user.
Most often, it is the merchant of
record. An airline ends up paying a
higher rate so that a passenger can
collect miles or points.
He noted that in Europe, a larger percentage of travel agencies
have their own merchant accounts,
and they tend to have a lower cost
of acceptance than airlines have.
Vukelich believes the current
trend is unsustainable.
“Change can happen in two
ways,” he said. Airlines either will
Readers of The Beat, a
business travel newsletter, voted Amadeus the
“Most Admired Technology Provider.” Accepting
the award at The Beat
Live in Chicago were
Nigel Aston, Amadeus IT
Group senior manager
for corporate marketing,
and Debra Iannaci,
public relations director
for Amadeus North
America. At right is Jay
Campbell, founder of The
Beat and editorial director of the BTN Group.
Chris Vukelich
no longer accept credit cards or will
no longer be the merchant of record
for all transactions, he said.
“If I were a travel procurement
manager, I would have a conversation with the airlines,” Vukelich
said.
Those who have a vested interest should figure out a way to reduce the costs “and share in the cost
reduction.”
Merchants, he said, are being
ripped off. “We need to take this
thing out of the closet and talk
about it openly,” he said.
Volume 9, Issue 21
On the Calendar
Page 8
Names in the news
For a complete listing of this
year’s travel industry events, visit
TTUtoday.com.
Oct. 13-14: Mega Event 2010
(Airline Loyalty and Ancillary Revenue Conferences); Fairmont Queen
Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal; airlineinformation.org.
Oct. 13-14: Travel Distribution
Summit North America, incorporating Revenue Management and Pricing in Travel; Westin Michigan Avenue, Chicago; eyefortravel.com.
Oct. 13-16: Abacus International
Conference; Intercontinental Asiana
Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam;
abacus.com.sg/aic.
Oct. 17-21: CASMA Fall Conference; Hilton Hotel Budapest;
casma.org.
Oct. 27-28: PROS Revenue
Management Conference; Hilton
Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport;
prospricing.com.
Oct. 31-Nov. 4: PAR SpringerMiller SMS|Host Users Group Conference; Resort at Squaw Creek,
Olympic Valley, Calif.; springermiller.com.
Nov. 9: Business Intelligence &
Social Media in Travel; Bethesda
DoubleTree Hotel Conference Center; airline information.org.
Nov. 10: OpenTravel Alliance
European Conference; The King’s
Fund, London; opentravel.org.
Nov. 16-18: PhoCusWright Conference; Westin Kierland Resort &
Spa; Scottsdale, Ariz.; phocuswright.com.
Nov. 23-24: Revenue Management & Pricing in Travel; Mövenpick
Hotel, Amsterdam; eyefortravel.com.
Charles Clough
Charles Clough joined Amadeus as vice president of airline IT
commercial for the America. He
was a director at TPI Inc., where he
provided consulting services to airlines and alliances. Bill Spilman
was named director of airline IT
solutions for the Americas. He was
director of product management for
the transportation industry at EDS,
an HP Company.
Kenny Scullion joined Amadeus as head of
U.K. sales. He was
business development director at
Octopus Travel,
Travelport’s online Kenny Scullion
hotel retailer.
Wyndham Hotel
Group appointed
Gareth
Gaston
senior vice president, global ecommerce. He was
managing director
Gareth Gaston and chief executive
officer for Octopus Travel.
Bill Spilman
Shawna
Poppell was appointed area director of revenue management for Benchmark Hospitality
International’s Orlando and Miami
resorts. She was
senior director of
Shawna Poppel revenue management and e-commerce for Central
Florida Investments, a group of 27
Westgate Resorts.
Mark Rizzuto was appointed
managing director, Asia Pacific and
Australia/New Zealand, at the National Business Travel Association
in Alexandria, Va. He was managing director of Tactical Management Consulting & RMB Consulting.
Hogg Robinson Group promoted Greg Treasure to managing
director for the Asia Pacific region.
He remains managing director for
HRG Australia and assumes responsibility for operations in
China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
He will be based in Hong Kong.
Volume 9, Issue 21
Page 9
News in brief
GDSs
Amadeus signed a long-term
content agreement with the Cathay
Pacific Group that provides Amadeus subscribers in Asia access to
the same level of fares, availability
and functionality on Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair as
any other travel agent content channel. Outside Asia, Cathay Pacific
and Dragonair increased their content guarantee to include all fares,
availability and functionality that
they distribute through their website, call center and other travel
agency content access channels.
Amadeus deployed Centrify
Corp.’s Centrify Suite to help meet
PCI compliance requirements and
increase the efficiency of its server
administration within its data center
in Erding, Germany.
Airlines
Royal Brunei Airlines, Royal
Jordanian Airlines, Gulf Air and
the LAN Group implemented
Travelport’s ViewTrip Online
Check-In service, enabling their
passengers with Apollo, Galileo
and Worldspan-created itineraries
to check in online at viewtrip.com.
in use at the Shade Hotel Manhattan Beach, since January.
WestJet launched its first codeshare agreement, with Cathay Pacific Airways. Cathay Pacific’s CX
code will be placed on WestJet
flights to Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg from Cathay Pacific’s Hong
Kong gateways, Toronto and Vancouver.
Red Carnation, a collection of
13 five- and four-star family-run
boutique hotels, adopted a new GDS
chain code – YX — for Hotel 41
and the Egerton House Hotel, both
in London.
Continental Airlines and TAP
Air Portugal, both members of the
Star Alliance, began sharing codes
on flights to a wide range of destinations in the U.S., Central America, Europe and Africa.
Etihad Airways renewed its
contract with Lufthansa Systems
for the SkyConnect network management system
Hotels
The Shade Hotel Redondo
Beach (Calif.), the Zislis Group’s
second hotel property, will use
EZYield.com’s channel management system. The system has been
Mobilizing
A collaboration of Newburyport, Mass.-based O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing and DeCare Systems Ireland Ltd., an enterprise software
development company, produced SmartStay, an iPhone app that can
be customized for individual hotel brands. The application serves as a
“24/7 mobile concierge” and provides users with a micro mobile hotel
website, real-time news about hotel promotions and local events and
an interactive city guide. A free demonstration is available at the Apple Store. Among the current users are the Shangri-La Hotel in Tokyo,
the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago and the Wyndham
Hotel in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Castle Hill Inn & Resort, a
Relais & Châteaux property in
Newport, R.I., implemented GuestScope, a guest-satisfaction feedback
solution developed by UniFocus.
Aptech Computer Systems
added a text analysis module that
provides quantifiable guest sentiment data to its Execuvue Business
Intelligence System.
Travel management
Trondent Development Corp.
said AirWEB Authorizer, its webbased authorization application, will
include the final approver’s e-mail
address within the status line of the
PNR. Details of the approving party
are already included within the web
view and e-mail communications
that travelers receive, but Trondent
has received requests to expand approver documentation to the agent
audience.
ITP, a network of independent
travel management companies with
multinational business travel clients,
signed an agreement with eGlobalfares for the provision of its technology to create an ITP-branded
fares portal that will facilitate collaboration among participating partners. The eGlobalfares technology
provides access to and comparison
of global fare information.
Back Talk
Delta Air Lines’ comments on the Transportation De-
would pay for development. The airlines that owned the
partment’s proposed rulemaking that would require air-
systems paid.
lines to provide ancillary service information to GDS
Airlines want to add some innovation to the way they
companies (see Page 1), touched on an issue that has yet
sell. Such is the contentious nature of their relationships
to get a thorough airing. Delta says it will “consider”
with their adult children that little of the noise surround-
distributing the services through GDSs if and when they
ing this issue has to do with innovating. It has to do with
develop the technology to display and sell them properly,
money. A lot of people suspect that ancillary services are
which for Delta and American would mean incorporat-
this year’s baseball bat for beating GDSs over the head,
ing personalized customer data.
replacing 2003’s web fares and 2006’s GDS new en-
And therein lies the rub: Who is going to pay for said
trants. But the issue of who pays for development of new
development?
ways of selling may turn out to be a larger issue than the
The existing GDSs are the children of the airlines that
airlines’ eternal quest for lower segment fees. This is
founded them. Back in the early days of Sabre, PARS,
about who is going to pay for the future.
Apollo and DATAS II, there was no question of who
Comments? E-mail [email protected].
Order your subscription to
Travel Technology Update
___ One year, US $450
___ Two years, US $850
Name________________________
Title__________________________
Company_____________________
City/State____________________
Postal or Zip
code/Country_________________
Phone________________________
E-Mail________________________
Please make check payable in U.S.
dollars to AMC Communications International Inc., P.O. Box 220432,
Saint Louis, MO 63122-0032.
For credit card payment, go to
ATWOnline.com and use the dropdown Shop feature.
World news briefing
Etihad Airways signed a fiveyear agreement with SITA to manage its fares across multiple departments, such as revenue management, sales and outsourced pricing
distribution, using SITA Airfare
Insight, part of the Horizon portfolio of solutions.
KDS, the European supplier of
integrated travel and expense management systems, added Hotelzon’s
inventory and functionality. Hotelzon has more than 100,000 hotels in
its portfolio, with particular strength
in the U.K., Scandinavia and China,
and it permits the use of loyalty
cards.
Egencia, Expedia Inc.’s travel
management company, formed strategic partnerships with TMCs that
add nine countries to the Egencia
Global Alliance’s coverage: GS
Travel in Athens, Greece; Travellink AB, an online agency that operates in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland; Swire Travel
Philippines; Variety International in Bangkok, Thailand; Netmedia Business Travel in Warsaw, Poland, and XL Thompsons
Travel in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Wotif.com, an Asia-Pacific
accommodations specialist based in
Brisbane, Australia, expanded its
destination focus to South Africa
and opened an office in Cape
Town.
Validcraft Travel Ltd. in
Southport, U.K., and Travel Sanctuary Operations Ltd. in Wirral,
U.K., ceased operations.