Early next year, global distribution system providers Amadeus and Travelport GDS plan to launch some components of their new point-of-sale agency desktop tools using interoperable technologies that enable access to multiple global distribution systems and third-party technology.
New point-of-sale developments include the movement of profile information out of GDSs and into stand-alone databases, giving agencies more flexible technology choices and less reliance on a single global distribution system for content.
Theoretically enabling agents to process reservations in a single booking environment, GDSs promise the new desktop developments will bring some core mid-office functions to the front end.
Travelport has integrated the G2 SwitchWorks assets it acquired in April for its point of sale and is scheduled for beta testing toward year-end
(BTNonline, April 4).Next year's first rollout stage will include integration between the separate profile and records databases and the booking platform, some advertising components, administrative system management tools and access to Travelport's three global distribution systems—Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan—as well as Sabre's, pending commercial agreements, said Travelport GDS senior vice president Flo Lugli.
Amadeus' point-of-sale launch leverages the company's collaborative technology approach (see story), which professes interoperability with third-party and competitor technology and offers GDS neutrality, according to group vice president of the multinational customer group Gillian Gibson.
Sabre Travel Network also has been working to consolidate its agent desktop variations into its MySabre platform.
The company also has moved to technology that enables integration with its customers' technology and third-party software.
Sabre also has begun to adapt the agent point of sale to new airline merchandizing models with branded fare display capabilities for Qantas Airways and XML data feeds to support carriers' new merchandizing platforms.
Despite its competitors' assertions of GDS agnosticism, commercial discussions will determine interoperability, said Sabre Travel Network senior vice president of North America Chris Kroeger.
"How that actually extends itself to be interoperable with other environments will clearly be based on how we work with our customers to have that profile information interoperable with their HR systems and others they have inside their environment," Kroeger said. "You are now in a position to be able to do that because you are in an open world to talk to each other. Whether you end up in a world where it's interoperable with other global distribution systems, I don't know if that's the case. That ultimately isn't a technology discussion. It's a commercial business discussion. The marketplace will ultimately play that out."
While new point-of-sale and records databases are months away, mega travel management companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building technology suites based less on global distribution systems and more on super passenger name record technology
(BTNonline, Aug. 13, 2007).Decreased reliance on global distribution systems and the move for those companies to provide more services and customizable products is bringing an evolution to the economic model.
"The global distribution systems fight tooth and nail for agency segments," Travelport's Lugli said. "Giving agencies more flexibility in relationships will move the focus away from segments and into a new model of service and empowerment tools."
Lugli even envisions the scenario where Travelport could provide an agency technology "without perhaps any of those bookings going through our own global distribution systems," she said. "We are no longer limited by a single economic model of segments. It will be very liberating for us and our customers as well."
Long-term potential economic changes aside, building mid-office functions onto the front end, whether from their own software or such third-party providers as TRX's Correx or Cornerstone Information Systems' IQCX, will offer agents access to more processes, increase transaction speed and potentially drive costs down.
TRX president and CEO Trip Davis said bringing mid-office function to the front end is a move in the right direction, but could reduce flexibility.
"Every single agency and corporation wants the flexibility to move their volume when and where necessary," Davis said. "That's an economic decision and a functional decision. Just because a global distribution system offers functionality doesn't mean it puts the corporation or an agency in the position where they don't want to manage that flexibility and switch between those systems."
While the new points of sale are customizable and scalable to fit agency needs, HRG has gone its own route in developing HRG Point of Sale, which it plans to roll out in the first quarter of 2009.
The HRG system, which is part of its Universal Super Platform technology, uses multi-GDS and non-GDS content, can drive bookings to suppliers or global distribution systems through rule-based engines and gives the company the ability for a standard booking process across regions.
"We want to control the desktop," said HRG North America executive vice president of technology Ted Brooks. "In the cases where the global distribution systems can't provide at the cost we need, the services or the content we need, it enables us to look at other places."
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