Innfinity Software Systems intends to
redevelop the back end of its Innfinite online booking tool using blockchain,
a move the company said will enable it to support the International Air Transport
Association's New Distribution Capability standards.
Who?
If you've never heard of the Innfinite booking engine or
Innfinity Software Systems, it's because this San Diego-based company, founded
in 1992, is a relatively immature player in terms of corporate travel. The
company got its start as a property management system for hotels but later
began managing workforce housing for oil industry clients. From there,
Innfinity signed on to handle the charter logistics for buses and flights into
and out of the remote campuses used by one of its clients, which led to broader
travel logistics including commercial flights.
Two years ago, Innfinity shifted the user interface of its
technology to fit the needs of corporate managed travel programs, licensing
Innfinite—a booking engine for air, hotel and car rental—to travel management
companies. The company has accelerated the buildup of its customer base throughout
2017, according to director of business development Ryan McCabe. Innfinite
users so far have been strictly travel bookers, but McCabe said Innfinity plans
to adapt the OBT for self-booking use in the coming months.
McCabe said the company has been keeping an eye on
blockchain "to see how things evolved" and what the best use cases
might be. Innfinite doesn't yet have a massive customer base, and that makes a
pivot to blockchain easier, he said. Innfinity's website lists TMC Vision
Travel among its partners.
What?
Innfinity senior developer Jonathan Carmody said blockchain "will
enable companies to combine content and offerings in ways that just aren't
currently possible through other standards."
First developed to support the digital currency bitcoin,
blockchain serves as a base for distributed ledger technology, which is "a
database that is consensually shared and synchronized across a network spread
across multiple sites, institutions or geographies," according to
Investopedia. The lack of centralization enabled by DLTs means speed because
all participants can access identical content at once. It also means transparency
because any changes made to content in the ledger are instantly updated to each
node in the network. And last it means security because a cyberattack would
need to hit every distributed piece of content instead of just one.
In its first phase, Innfinity is going to use blockchain to
create a faster and more flexible platform that will play host to supplier
content sourced using NDC standards. "What we're planning to do is start
transacting on the blockchain through our online booking tool," said
Carmody. "We hope that giving our partners greater flexibility in the way
they distribute their products will allow them to offer richer content not
currently available through traditional channels." An example of such
content is customer-specific bundles that include priority boarding, loyalty
incentives and additional ancillary content.
Eventually, however, Carmody said blockchain would allow not
just for NDC content but also for smart contracts. "Smart contracts allow
you to set up business rules about how things are paid for and how things are
delivered," he said, "all the while providing an added level of trust
thanks to blockchain technology's immutable transaction history."
Innfinity anticipates that proof of concept for
the first phase of the Innfinite distributed market infrastructure will be
ready by the end of the third quarter.