Air ticket distributor HitchHiker and STA Travel are embarking on a major programme to upgrade the travel agency's ability to search and book air fares.
STA IDIV, the global wholesale division of STA Travel, works with around 150 affiliated agencies and franchises around the world, giving students and youth travel specialists access to the wider STA inventory of flights, hotels and other land products.
HitchHiker, using its TeMyra.Agent platform, currently powers agents in around seven countries, but this is expected to be extended massively over the course of 2011.
By the end of the year, agents (offline and online) in around around 30 countries will be using the system, following early piloting in countries such as Norway and Denmark.
TeMyra.Agent effectively ends each agency's reliance on calling on their own GDS for air fare search and booking, meaning queries are sent to a centralised ticketing system.
The system is run from the UK and sees the end of individual agent debt memos being issued for each agency.
As well as the franchise agreements with STA IDIV, HitchHiker is powering the country agency fare search and booking for STA in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Dolphin Dynamics continues to run the back-office functionality and administration tools.