The latest systems news, launches and more from around the travel, tourism and hospitality industry in July 2013.
Monday 29 July 2013:- HolidayIQ, India's holiday discussion and review portal has implemented Akamai Technologies' Aqua Web Experience solution to improve security and performance of the site. The solution ensures a smooth and consistent experience on the site even during peak traffic, faster delivery of content as well as overall improvement in site availability and scalability as site traffic increase.
Saturday 27 July 2013:- AirIndia has ventured into holiday packages business. The site has a new 'Holidays' section that is powered by MakeMyTrip, India's OTA.
Two Japanese airports - Naha Airport in Okinawa (OKA) and Kagoshima Airport in Kagoshima (KOJ) - will be implementing vMUSE Express solution by ARINC. vMUSE will enable airport authorities from various airlines to directly log into the Departure Control System (DCS) at any counter over any device. The sharing of counter facilities will improve terminal operations, and allow both airports to meet the growth in passenger traffic.
Wednesday 24 July 2013:- Philippine Airlines is implementing solutions from the Amadeus Travel Intelligence Portfolio to support in its expansion and service innovation programs. Solutions include - Amadeus Market Information Data Tapes (MIDT) - Philippine Airlines can monitor global market dynamics to aide in identifying profitable routes and developing more effective sales and marketing programs; Amadeus Air Traffic - Calculates an accurate estimate of air passenger volume for any origin and destination (O&D) worldwide, the solution allows Philippine Airlines to evaluate current and possible new routes, identify the best connections for long haul flights, optimise planning and scheduling; Consulting services, to help analyse the data and use the new solutions in the most efficient way.
Friday 19 July 2013:- Clarcity, the business travel management company will use Vayant's OneSearch airfare pricing and shopping engine to power the flight search component of its Travel & Expense section. Recently, Lufthansa selected Vayant's caching system to boost distribution to tour operators and consolidators in Central Europe.
Tuesday 16 July 2013:- Concur, the giant in the travel expense management game, has announced another acquisition today: It has purchased TRX, a mid-level travel management company (TMC) and another mid-office and data analytics solution from GDSX. Concur is investing heavily more in TMCs through internal solution development and acquisitions, to "enable seamless linking to suppliers, technology providers, corporations, and travelers."
Sunday 7 July 2013:- ARINC grabs EgyptAir as customer for check-in support services. The partnership will be used to back the carrier's use of teh Amadeus ALTEA departure control platform. ARINC will install its AviNet Airport services in Egypt and throughout the rest of the world where existing ARINC vMUSE platforms are operational.
Friday 5 July 2013:- All Nippon Airlines completes migration of PSS systems to the Unisys AirCore platform. The airline's booking, ticketing and boarding technology began the switch in February this year, ending 34 years of use of its in-house system.
- SiteMinder selected by Hyatt Hotels & Resorts as a preferred channel manager vendor. The agreement follows the appointment of David Chestler as EVP for the Americas and the company's push into new regions.
- IBM and India's Jet Airways has entered into a 10-year agreement where the former will provide contact centre, back-office services, IT infrastructure and improved analytics solutions for the airline. With the existing agreement, IBM provides data centre operations, end-user services, central helpdesk, network management services and server storage for the airline.
Tuesday 2 July 2013:- Amadeus extends IT partnership with Griffin Global Group. The current deal has been in place for ten years and now sees the addition of the Amadeus Selling Platform and Web Services into the mix. The Agency Manager platform will also be used by the UK-based travel agency specialising in marine, offshore and cruise trip.
Monday 1 July 2013:- Indian Railways has launched SMS-based train reservation facility. This initiative is targeted towards users who does not have access to internet and cannot afford a smartphone. Internet penetration in India is only about 10%, whereas more than 80% of people in India use mobile. In addition to making a reservation, users will also be able to search for stations, trains, availability, PNR enquiry, cancellation ticket.
- MakeMyTrip, India's OTA, has launched SMS-based bus ticket booking service, developed by txtWeb, an open platform for SMS applications. The company said that it chose bus reservation for this platform since the ticket-value is lower for most first-time users to confidently experiment with the channel. This is how it works:
- Users enter origin, destination, date of travel and number of passengers in an SMS and send it
- Users receive acknowledgment from MakeMyTrip via SMS that also has list of operators to be selected
- MakeMyTrip responds with details and names of travellers along with a template to make payments
- Once the payment process is complete, a confirmation SMS is be sent along with an e-mail
- Travelport renews IT agreement with Uniglobe Skylink Travel & Tours. The latest development in a 15-year relationship sees the Tanzania-based corporate travel management company take on a variety of tools from Travelport including the Agentivity and Mobile Agent services. The contract will run for five years.
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