Mega Agencies Taking Data Warehousing Up A Notch

Responding to travel buyers' ever-increasing demands for data, mega travel agencies are developing new warehousing capabilities, including consolidation of data, speeding up data delivery from international sources and improving reporting capabilities.

John Dabek, CIO for Philadelphia-based Rosenbluth International, said the mega recently expanded its data warehousing operations to handle global reporting on a new Oracle platform with Sun Microsystems servers.

"We worked with third-party data management firms—Miramar, Fla.-based ICSAT and Roswell, Ga.-based Hi-Mark—on the expansion," he said. "Together, we came up with a nine-month process that we completed in January."

The new four-terabyte warehouse at Rosenbluth's corporate headquarters receives data from around the world and is updated in real time from U.S. sources, with eight people managing it. "For most of our global market, the database is updated nightly," Dabek said. "In more remote places, it is updated weekly. Our next move is to create real-time data across the board."

All international and domestic Rosenbluth data is fed through a private network with firewalls for an extra level of security. "In early March, we introduced our next generation of reporting tools, which we designed in partnership with Hi-Mark (BTN, March 4). The new tools provide ad hoc reporting capabilities," Dabek said.

Aaron Hall, vice president of information technology at St. Louis-based TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions, said travel buyers' interest in the company's $8 million NorthStar global data warehouse is driven, in large part, by the desire for "accurate, complete supplier data to be used for contract negotiations."

"We have two large regional warehouses in St. Louis and Bremen, Germany," Hall said. "At those locations, we receive data from TQ3 offices around the world, which then are consolidated and delivered to our clients." About 17 programmers, analysts and operations staff support the main warehousing system.

TQ3 Maritz client reporting is "100 percent Internet-based," Hall said. "Some clients use e-mail reporting, some access our data warehouse over the Internet and reports are posted on custom Web sites for other clients."

In the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico, warehousing data is updated daily. Data updates arrive from overseas locations less frequently. For around-the-clock help, TQ3 Maritz's "telephone help desk is available 24/7 for technical problems, such as login or other system access questions," Hall said. He added that TQ3 Maritz's data is secured by extensive firewalls and data encryption: "Our infrastructure is at Fortune 500 security levels, since our company runs Web sites for such clients as Microsoft and Ford Motor Co."

Yvonne Schneider, vice president and general manager of global product development for American Express, said, "Globalization is helping to drive travel buyers' interest in data. There is increasing complexity of data as global programs progress."

All American Express travel and card data is consolidated in Phoenix at the company's global data repository, which has a staff of 50. "We centralize data from all our markets, including franchises," Schneider said. "Data is collected from 1,400 sources in 40 countries. We process information there and receive new feeds on a daily basis, then we synthesize the information into something that travel managers can use."

Reporting tools offered by American Express include Portfolio/Web or Portfolio/E-mail, Schneider said. Information can be custom sorted by region, country, carrier or route. "American Express is very tight on data security," she said. "We encrypt data and maintain a 128-bit security system." She added that fencing, security cameras and a 24-hour security force protect the company's global data repository.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel's global database will be finished next month, according to LeAnn Lorbiecki, manager of data management at the Minneapolis-based mega. "We're standardizing our mainframe so even our global data will reside at our corporate headquarters," Lorbiecki said. Twenty-eight employees service CWT's domestic data warehouse, and an equal number of employees handle operations in Europe. "We have a data warehouse and an Operational Data Store," she said. "The data in the warehouse is for consulting and supplier relations; it's post-trip data, basically.

"Traveler profiles and pre-trip data is part of our client reporting system Symphonie Discovery, which is housed in a separate database we call the Operational Data Store," Lorbiecki continued. "We get better performance by keeping client reporting data in its own database." Data coming from CWT operations in America is updated in real time, she added.

Neville Teagarden, CIO of Denver-based Navigant International, said, "clients are seeking to squeeze every dollar they can, so we're pumping out a huge number of reports for supplier negotiations and fine-tuning policies." Jan. 31 was the official launch of Navigant's latest reporting tool, ReportFlyr 2.0. "This has really been a multi-year, multi-phase, multimillion-dollar effort," Teagarden said. Aqua, a subsidiary of Navigant, helped to design the reporting tool.

Navigant in January also released its third-generation data warehouse. "We've grown a lot through acquisitions," Teagarden said, "so our focus with the latest generation warehouse was to have a single source of data. We can receive data in any form, across the Internet, on a CD or via fax. We have a lot of flexibility."

The Navigant data warehouse "uses industrial strength IBM and EMC storage, and Cisco networking gear," Teagarden said. "Our data security is multi-layered: We have firewalls and data encryption, as well as physical security measures like our fire suppression system." To ensure the integrity of data, an outside firm periodically audits Navigant's security systems.

Meanwhile, WorldTravel BTI executive vice president Dee Runyan said, "Our vision of our data warehouse, which is located at corporate headquarters in Atlanta, is for it to be a repository for the various back-offices systems for CTDs and our partner agencies," she said.

WorldTravel's data warehouse, part of the agency's Atlanta data center, has a staff of 10. "We update our data warehouse on a weekly basis," Runyan said. "It contains only ticketed information, but we have other databases that are more transactional. We have our pre-trip and profile databases in Dallas and our quality management database in Atlanta. We also have other back-office servers in Kansas City, Phoenix and Atlanta. Our customer data is stored on those individual back-office servers."