<B>TechTalk</B>
By Cheryl Rosen
<B>MetLife's Molesky Tries Tech</B>
MetLife is about to begin pilot testing two new travel technologies--GetThere.com's Global Manager online booking system and Delta's Sky Card, a pay-as-you-fly program that allows travelers with no prior reservations to access their preferred corporate rate and check in for Delta Shuttle flights at airport kiosks. MetLife travel services manager Tom Molesky said the Manhattan-based insurer "is looking at everything that's cost-effective and streamlined." MetLife has moved 70 percent of its reservations to e-tickets, but that was not an option for open Shuttle tickets. In addition to eliminating paper tickets, Molesky believes the Sky Card program will offer "flexibility, corporate discounts, frequent flyer points and cost savings." Meanwhile, Global Manager first will roll out to a pilot group of 100 of MetLife's 7,000 travelers. "I know the system works, but I want to make sure it works for MetLife, that the functionality is the way we want it and that it integrates with our systems," Molesky said.
<A NAME="2"><B>Ticket Printing Moves Online</B>
Online booking competitors Sabre and GetThere.com both have invested in EncrypTix, a new subsidiary of Stamps.com that is developing technology to allow people to print out their own airline tickets and travel documents from Internet sites. GetThere likely will use the technology on its own site and those it hosts for carriers, since Sabre bought the right to serve as the exclusive GDS to offer the EncrypTix technology in North and Latin America, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
"It's exciting technology that will revolutionize the travel experience," said Sabre BTS's senior vice president of emerging businesses Nancy Raynor, though she noted that discussions with the carriers have yet to produce an agreement to actually accept such tickets for air travel.
Meanwhile, Sabre envisions using the technology to print out bar-coded tickets for events and airport transfers that it will link back to the PNR through its Specialty Bookings product that rolled out to agents in January, on its public Web sites and in Sabre BTS. "That's the first piece," Raynor said, "but the second will allow you to print bar-coded airline tickets." She did acknowledge, though, that while "the technology works today, obviously we need to work with our airline partners to implement and accept the bar coding for tickets and settlement."
<A NAME="3"><B>Travel Tech Headhunters Grow</B>
Citing an "acute shortage of personnel with technical and Internet expertise" in the travel industry, The Day Partnership executive search firm has added two new partners: James Kelleher, formerly of WorldTravel Partners, and Eric Hofer of Navigant International. The Chicago-based firm has provided recruitment services for the travel industry and for travel-related Internet startups since 1982.
<A NAME="4"><B>Visa Uses XML For Folio Data</B>
A Visa International pilot project currently under way with hotel and car rental companies in the United Kingdom, France and Germany has shown they can successfully capture and deliver enhanced data to corporate customers using XML, the de facto standard language of the Internet. Visa will work with merchants worldwide to install the new XML-based Visa Global Invoice Specification and is "encouraging" them to migrate to the XML standard to provide "high quality invoice data in a globally interoperable manner." Visa found that the language "enables suppliers to give us the full hotel folio information," said Visa International delivery vice president Alistair Duncan. "If they provide the data, we can pass it along through the Visa network. We create the overall network that our members adopt and we set the standards, so we can integrate with them and send along the full data." The standard was developed by Visa in cooperation with CommerceOne, IBM, Sun Microsystems and ValiCert.
<A NAME="5"><B>TTG's ResAssist Chosen By DOT</B>
Travel Technologies Group late last month partnered with the U.S. Department of Transportation to jointly complete its government Web site, which will use ResAssist. The site, FedTrip, is scheduled to pilot with a group of federal employees in the second quarter. After the pilot test, the system will be made available to the government's civilian and military workforce. Deputy CFO of the DOT David Klineberg said a $4 per-booking fee will be charged to travel agencies that fulfill FedTrip reservations.