A couple of Tnooz posts about Microsoft Surface have me reaching for the reality-check button.
The reason? Most travel agents, in the U.S. at least, still prefer to use DOS-like linear commands and time-worn scripts on their green-screen desktops (the screen on Sabre’s actually is blue, I believe) as their preferred user interface. GUIs? Nah, too inefficient.
So, TravelTainment is constructing a Microsoft Surface application for travel agents, and Sheraton apparently has one of the best Microsoft Surface applications in any vertical.
At some of Sheraton’s U.S. locations, including the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers and the Sheraton Boston Hotel, guests apparently can run their fingertips along those cool-looking Surface tables and book restaurants and map their car routes.
Great stuff and I’d bet that many folks would swap the ping-pong table in the basement for one of those Microsoft Surface tables any day.
Microsoft Surface could and will (I hope) transform the way consumers shop for travel.
We’re already seeing so much visual stuff in travel.
Bing recently launched visual search for destinations and Priceline this week introduced Hotel Price Maps as a visual way to make Name-Your-Own Price bidding less opaque.
Meanwhile, ASTA’s Director of Research Melissa Teates says green-screen usage has not been a question on the organization’s recent travel agency technology surveys, but she believes that a majority of U.S. agents still use green screens as their preferred user interface.
There are plenty of GUI desktops out there in GDS land and many travel agents are hip to social media and new technologies.
But, as the emergence of Microsoft Surface symbolizes, the travel agency community increasingly is becoming a world of technology haves and technology have nots.
And, financial questions aren't always the primary driver in this regard.
Some agents embrace new ways of doing things, and some just don’t.