<B>OTA Publishes Version 1</B>
The OpenTravel Alliance last month published its long-awaited extensible markup language-based Version 1 profile specification, which gives airlines, hotels, car rental companies, travel agencies and others a single format for collecting and exchanging data on customer preferences.
Vendors now are free to implement the format (BTN, July 10), which allows travel suppliers and intermediaries to collect identification and preferences from travelers one time and exchange that information with each other.
The specification, the first of many components that the OTA intends to define, provides a uniform vocabulary that captures and exchanges data on a traveler's identity, affiliations including employer, loyalty programs, forms of payment, travel documents and detailed travel preferences.
OTA Version 1 does not contain data on corporate travel policies or requirements.Preferences can be straightforward or can meet complex conditions, including travel choices to avoid.
The specifications let customers define collections of travel service in terms of their own varied needs, and contain "comprehensive privacy features."
OTA Version 1 also allows customers to identify related travelers, such as family members, companions or fellow business colleagues, and link to their profiles. Version 1 messages contain four basic functions: creating a profile, reading a profile, updating a profile and deleting a profile.
"The technical and organizational experience from Version 1 provides an excellent foundation for our work on common availability and reservations messages for travel suppliers, which is now well underway, and should allow us to complete this by year-end," said OTA vice chair Stephanie Kenyon of the American Association of Travel Agents.
OTA has more than 150 members.