<B> Tech Talk</B>
By Cheryl Rosen, Technology Editor
<B>Three BTS Upgrades Focus On Speed</B>
Sticking to its aggressive goal of releasing an upgrade to its Business Travel Solutions booking system every six to eight weeks, Sabre last week debuted version 1.3, which adds a Trip Guide designed to help novice users make their first booking in record time. To that end, the new version uses simple questions, like "Where are you going?" to replace the clicking-and-dragging that have heretofore been the online booking norm.
"Where the expert version of BTS is set up like a hub-and-spoke with a calendar in the middle, this is more point-to-point," said BTS marketing director Peter Stevens. "We believe it's a walk-up interface--you just click on one button and answer a couple of questions, and you're booked. For a while we sent out a brochure with instructions for every system, but now we have designed the product to be its own training tool."
With a new version due in another six weeks, Stevens said the drawing board now focuses on adding traveler content, including destination information and maps, and foreign currency conversion. The cycle after that, leading up to the annual National Business Travel Association trade show in August, "is going to big the big one," he added, declining further details of what's in the works.
<a name="0"><B>ResAssist Looks To Global Corps.</B>
Travel Technologies Group has aimed the upgrade of its booking software, ResAssist Version 2.11, at meeting the needs of travel managers at multinational corporations.
"One of the issues with administering a global system is that there are just so many travelers and so many subsets," said TTG president Jon Farrier. "So we put in a robust warehouse that allows you to select various subsets out of the universe of traveler--like those in a given cost center authorized to fly first class--and make mass changes. If you change all your policy so that travelers in Latin America are no longer allowed to fly first class, but instead must fly business class, you can make one mass subset update to the system to effect that change." The new version also supports multiple passports and international currencies.
At the same time, Farrier bemoaned the current economics of automated booking systems, where some competitors "are willing to give it away" as part of larger relationships, so that "it's a real challenge for many vendors to rationalize why they are in the business."
"Direct marketing to corporations, who have as an alternative relationships that mask the true economic opportunity," is slow going, Farrier said, though he believes "it's an issue of the infancy of the genre and that eventually the economics will settle down." In the meantime, however, "Our strategic answer is to sell ResAssist to larger and larger entities, like CRSs and large travel management companies and consortia, who have the ability to redistribute the product to corporate customers."
<a name="1"><B>United, A Galileo Owner, Takes The CRS To Court </B>
United Airlines has filed suit in an Illinois court against Galileo International, the CRS of which it owns 31.9 percent. The suit charges Galileo with trying to finesse United out of its longtime role of marketing Apollo and Galileo services in the United States, and of recruiting United salespeople into the new Galileo sales force that will replace it. The suit asks the court for an injunction to stop Galileo from following through on a notice of termination it sent in December to United and to US Airways, which also sold Apollo and Galileo services.
Insiders suggested that Galileo is distancing itself from its airline owners in an attempt to package itself as an independent provider of travel technology--a model that has proven successful for The Sabre Group. A former subsidiary of American Airlines, Sabre spun off into an independent unit of American's parent, AMR Corp., in July, 1996.
<a name="2"><B>Sabre Moves Small Subscribers to the Net</B>
The Sabre Group this month announced the introduction of the Sabre Net Platform, which will allow smaller travel agencies or remote agents to access the Sabre system through the public Internet. The platform can reduce expenses by as much as 40 percent, said Adres Fabris, manager of Sabre's platform technology group, since a dedicated data line can cost up to $400, while a connection to an Internet service provider is about $19.95 a month, and a phone line is $30. Sabre Net includes "significant security in terms of encryption," said Fabris, and allows tickets to be printed locally.