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Technology

Online Booking Tool Will Be Redeveloped Using Blockchain

By Julie Sickel / July 12, 2017 / Contact Reporter
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Innfinity Software Systems intends to redevelop the back end of its Innfinite online booking tool using blockchain, a move the company said will enable it to support the International Air Transport Association's New Distribution Capability standards.

Who?

If you've never heard of the Innfinite booking engine or Innfinity Software Systems, it's because this San Diego-based company, founded in 1992, is a relatively immature player in terms of corporate travel. The company got its start as a property management system for hotels but later began managing workforce housing for oil industry clients. From there, Innfinity signed on to handle the charter logistics for buses and flights into and out of the remote campuses used by one of its clients, which led to broader travel logistics including commercial flights.

Two years ago, Innfinity shifted the user interface of its technology to fit the needs of corporate managed travel programs, licensing Innfinite—a booking engine for air, hotel and car rental—to travel management companies. The company has accelerated the buildup of its customer base throughout 2017, according to director of business development Ryan McCabe. Innfinite users so far have been strictly travel bookers, but McCabe said Innfinity plans to adapt the OBT for self-booking use in the coming months.

McCabe said the company has been keeping an eye on blockchain "to see how things evolved" and what the best use cases might be. Innfinite doesn't yet have a massive customer base, and that makes a pivot to blockchain easier, he said. Innfinity's website lists TMC Vision Travel among its partners.

What?

Innfinity senior developer Jonathan Carmody said blockchain "will enable companies to combine content and offerings in ways that just aren't currently possible through other standards."

First developed to support the digital currency bitcoin, blockchain serves as a base for distributed ledger technology, which is "a database that is consensually shared and synchronized across a network spread across multiple sites, institutions or geographies," according to Investopedia. The lack of centralization enabled by DLTs means speed because all participants can access identical content at once. It also means transparency because any changes made to content in the ledger are instantly updated to each node in the network. And last it means security because a cyberattack would need to hit every distributed piece of content instead of just one.

In its first phase, Innfinity is going to use blockchain to create a faster and more flexible platform that will play host to supplier content sourced using NDC standards. "What we're planning to do is start transacting on the blockchain through our online booking tool," said Carmody. "We hope that giving our partners greater flexibility in the way they distribute their products will allow them to offer richer content not currently available through traditional channels." An example of such content is customer-specific bundles that include priority boarding, loyalty incentives and additional ancillary content.

Eventually, however, Carmody said blockchain would allow not just for NDC content but also for smart contracts. "Smart contracts allow you to set up business rules about how things are paid for and how things are delivered," he said, "all the while providing an added level of trust thanks to blockchain technology's immutable transaction history."

Innfinity anticipates that proof of concept for the first phase of the Innfinite distributed market infrastructure will be ready by the end of the third quarter.

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