With OpenTravel's XML standards, the long tail of travel distribution may begin to get a big more wag -- or even swag.
In that regard, Peak 15 Systems used OpenTravel's tour standards to deliver Austin-Lehman Adventures' small-group adventure tours to Signature Travel Network, a travel agency cooperative.
While major tour operators such as TUI and Thomas Cook have used OpenTravel's packaged tour messages for some time, Peak 15's implementation with Austin-Lehman Adventures and Signature represents the first usage of OpenTravel's tour messages for non-package tours, says James O'Leonard, the founder and CEO of the tour-operator software vendor.
Austin-Lehman, with its multisport adventures and glacier tours, uses Peak 15 software, which deploys OpenTravel's XML-based tour messages to transmit trip availability and price-change data to Signature's travel agencies, O'Leonard says.
With an eye toward the emerging players in the long tail, OpenTravel has modified its tour messages and made them smaller and easier to implement, says Valyn Perini, OpenTravel's executive director.
Ease of implementation is a key driver of tour standards.
"Having a standard is incredibily important," says Karen Yeates, vice president of Internet business solutions at Signature Travel Network. "We currently have trip information from over 30 of the largest tour operators in our system today and have created a direct connection with 11 different systems to date."
Using the OpenTravel tour standard, Signature can "plug in any tour operator that is using Peak 15, [and] also any other system that implements the standard in the future, which means we can start to work with more and more of these small to mid-size companies," Yeates says.
Standards can be controversial and are not for everyone, but they could be an answer for the highly fragmented tour business, with its bevy of small operators and widely divergent products.
O'Leonard says Peak 15 worked with OpenTravel in 2008 to develop and publish tour industry messages.
The standard was built into the Peak 15 system in 2009, and the Austin Lehman Adventures-Signature hook-up was its first implementation.