OTA Publishes XML Data Standard

<B>OTA Publishes XML Data Standard</B>

By Cheryl Rosen

In a rare cooperative effort spanning all the segments of the travel industry, the OpenTravel Alliance on Feb. 29 published its first data standard, offering a single format for building, storing and passing along passenger profile information by all buyers, sellers and intermediaries in the travel purchasing process.

The standard is not yet set in stone--public comment on the data specifications will be accepted until March 29--but insiders do not expect disagreement at this point.

Indeed, the industry seems to be embracing the tantalizing visions of the future that data standards offer. For the corporate market, such a standard would simplify the process of loading profiles into online booking systems--currently a key data roadblock in the implementation process. It also should make it easier to transfer records when corporations change travel agencies or global distribution systems, to compile corporate databases from diverse systems, and to build direct links to preferred suppliers.

And each sector has its own travel technology dream. One travel management company envisioned a new role for travel agencies as database outsourcers for corporate customers.

The specs--in XML, the evolving language of the Internet--are published on the OpenTravel Alliance Web site, www.opentravel.org. A live demonstration there, developed by McCord Travel of Chicago and Airline Automation Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., lets visitors create, read, update and delete simple customer profiles with valid XML messages.

Version 1 of the standard was produced by more than 100 key industry players who have joined OTA since May 1999. Included are representatives of virtually all the major providers in the air, car rental, hotel, travel agency, global distribution and online booking sectors, plus a couple of corporate travel managers and the National Business Travel Association (<I>BTN</I>, Jan. 10). These were divided into five working groups--air, car, hotel, leisure supplier and non-supplier--whose efforts were coordinated by an interoperability committee.

Julia Kendrick-O'Brien, spokeswoman for the Data Interchange Standards Association, the Alexandria, Va.-based organization that is working with OTA, said the group has "received a few comments on the standard so far, but to the best of my knowledge none have been negative."

Historically, negative feedback on any industry standard tends to come in at the last minute, she acknowledged. But the OTA "is not expecting disagreement, though we won't know for sure until the comment period closes."

OTA board chairman Jim Young of Continental Airlines noted that the key objective of Version 1 is "for customers to enter their basic data and travel preferences just once, no matter how many travel suppliers and intermediaries are involved in a trip. As we extend the scope in Version 2 and beyond, trading partners will be able to exchange more trip-centric information in ways that create new and better-tailored services for individual travelers."

"Basically, the OTA standard is a common definition of what profiles should look like--including information on the travelers, their employers and their supplier preferences--that everyone can read, update, modify and link," said Dr. James deBettencourt, director of strategic development at OTA member McCord Travel.

For corporate customers, it means not having to maintain separate profiles in the GDS and in online booking and reporting systems. Rather, a single database of passenger name records could be used to communicate with all the booking engines.

He agreed that the ability to synchronize profiles with online booking systems is an unexpectedly tedious and time-consuming process, and a key to McCord's interest in OTA. But the implications the XML standard holds for more direct links between travel buyers and suppliers is another.

"With this standard, we're getting to the point where you can support and manage multiple booking systems--direct, classic GDS and online--all running at the same time and all with the same information tied into the back end, identifying the traveler and his corporation throughout the process," he said.

Indeed, the movement toward open data in the travel industry holds the potential for a new line of business for travel management companies--or rather, a new take on their traditional line of providing travel automation to corporate buyers. "A year from now," he said, "I would expect larger corporations to implement offline profile systems in conjunction with large travel agencies like McCord. Such a database is the key to negotiating with suppliers--and helping to shape and maintain it is a role for the travel agency in partnership with the client, the booking tool vendor and the travel supplier."

At Hewlett-Packard--which now is loading 60,000 traveler profiles from two travel agencies into the GetThere.com online booking system--Internet travel technology manager Dorian Stonie said the challenge for corporations "lies in working with multiple agencies trying to integrate the data between the agency, the online booking system and our internal and external databases. Our goal is that travel data should only be touched once, when the traveler enters it, and then it should flow automatically from top to bottom. But we often find a number of intermediary steps are necessary. If travel agency information resides in an external database outside the GDS, you have to send e-mail to the agency or make notations in the passenger name record to convert it to the external database. There hasn't been a direct connection--and that's what we're hoping XML and the standards will be able to produce."

In its current implementation, H-P "is working closely with GetThere so that when XML becomes available, we'll work on piloting these programs," Stonie said. "I'm hoping it will be only a matter of months and we'll have viable options from the online booking systems as this becomes a more standardized process."

Stonie also agreed that standardizing customer profiles was the right place for OTA to start. "I've been in the travel industry for 15 years, and for me, profile management is like the Holy Grail--one of the most disconnected databases but one that's been extremely important to the traveler," he said. "In the past, the only opportunity we've had to share the information has been hard-copy printouts off the GDS screens, and the challenge has been to keep them up to date and to manage the information within the GDSs. Putting them in an external database allows the agency to better manage them--and XML will provide an opportunity for us to do that on a level we don't have right now."

OTA member Andy Menkes, global travel management vice president of HSBC Bank in New York, said the feedback he contributed to the group was the corporate focus, the need to include data fields for corporate metrics like cost centers and savings codes. For him, the OTA vision includes "open architecture, robust information and the ability to book through multiple portals and have that PNR reassembled into a single super PNR."

As an example of the difference XML will bring, he noted that with the current system, "you look at availability and see a 'J.' That's not a lot of information. But XML will allow us to see a picture of the actual seat. Now we get reports that list the traveler's address, phone, city, state and zip--but with XML you could just click and sort on any field."

Continental's Young offered another example. "It means I can give your travelers your corporate rate no matter what channel you care to buy through, even at the counter, by linking your corporate human resources data with the Continental Shares system. We're getting a lot of demand from our corporate customers to do that, and I want to deliver.