World Travel, Inc., today opened a new technology innovation center in Uruguay, which president Erika Moore said is the next step in a "full digital transformation" for the travel management company.
The center is operated by Montevideo-based IT solutions and customer service provider Paramek, and it is acting as World Travel's mid-layer for servicing customers, Moore said. "That will allow us to continue to elaborate on our content strategy … and also allows us to start integrating other capabilities, particularly around the use of AI/machine learning, accelerating how we integrate these different things into the workflow," she said.
World Travel selected Uruguay because it has become "a point of great IT expertise" where it is "relatively easy to acquire very skilled talent at an affordable rate," with expertise across cloud technology and blockchain and knowledge of global distribution systems and the travel industry, according to Moore. It boasts a high level of English-speaking professionals as well as foreign investment incentives via its Zona Franca tax-free zones, she said.
All of World Travel's mid- and long-term IT development in the future will take place out of the Uruguay center, which is starting with about 30 to 40 employees, Moore said. That includes not only World Travel's proprietary technology but also servicing it does for TMCs through its One Global joint venture with Clarity Business Travel, she said.
On content, New Distribution Capability is "at the forefront" for the center in pushing to drive NDC consumption and servicing NDC not only direct-connect bookings but also global distribution system bookings, she said. The center also will enable World Travel to "elaborate" its use of third-party technologies for cost savings, such as airfare optimization tool Wenrix and Emburse's offerings under the former Tripbam, she said.
Moore said the center will be a critical component of an AI rollout planned for later this year, helping navigate the complexities of its small and midsized customers for travel fulfillment.
"We are going to start building out a data lake, bringing in the customer profiles and all the activity that takes place, and be able to understand at a more holistic level the overall patterns," Moore said. "Hopefully, through the rollout and buildout out of this database we will be able to … not only provide differentiated intel to our own customers, but also it will allow us to start engaging with airlines in different kinds of conversations."
In addition, World Travel has a virtual pay product and is planning to "start dabbling in the blockchain space," Moore said. "The fact that we have the talent at our fingertips out of Uruguay will allow us to be able to accelerate those developments once we're ready."
Moore said the center builds on work the TMC started last year, including upscaling its contact center and moving to Sabre—which has its own development center in Uruguay a few blocks away from World Travel's new center—as its primary tech provider.
"Sabre has a very open infrastructure in terms of APIs, being able to integrate to other ecosystems and is user friend, which enables us to have an IT base and build and elaborate on that," Moore said. "We're really starting to be at a turning point in bringing World Travel to a full digital transformation."