Op-Ed: A Formula For Enhancing Travel: A Universal Profile
I'm sure that many of you have heard about or seen the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," in which Russell Crowe played Professor John F. Nash Jr., a brilliant mathematician based in Princeton, N.J. In the movie, Professor Nash could look at a series of seemingly unrelated numbers and figure out a correlation between them.
Our office is right outside of Princeton, so I tried a test with a number of graduate students, who were given the following numbers to decipher:
A3X64B 843CY65 38536293 G86539272
83629381 32903762 765302477 048272765
A387260382 00583058381 883274922 39C83GH2
As you could imagine, none of them could figure out the correlation among the numbers. In fact, other than the National Security Agency Cryptology Unit, I doubt that anyone would know these are my various Frequent Traveler ID numbers for airlines, hotels and car rental companies (the numbers have been changed to protect the innocent).
I am writing this Op-Ed to urge my industry colleagues to develop a standardized and universally recognized Frequent Traveler Profile ID.
I only have one driver's license, one passport number and one Social Security number. Why must I have a wallet full of ID numbers that all contain essentially the same information, and yet they can't "talk to each other?"
I, for one, would be willing to pay an annual fee to maintain a single database of all of my pertinent travel information. Ideally, I would have the ability to decide how the information is shared (i.e., I am happy to give Avis my Continental Elite number if they give me points). Hertz and Avis still would have a unique identification number for me in their internal systems, but I wouldn't need to know them.
The next logical step in all of this is to have my Frequent Traveler Profile ID stored in a format that can be downloaded by all of the global distribution system companies, as well as any and all of the online booking products.
The beauty of this type of profile stored in HTML is that it will contain substantially more information about my travel profile than the GDSs permit, such as incident tracking, traveler histories, promotional histories and, ultimately, biometric imaging files. These biometric files will stay attached to me for life, such as my thumbprint in my "PortPASS" from the INS.
Once this Frequent Traveler Profile ID has been successfully stored and downloaded by all of the suppliers in my wallet, I no longer will have to update my individual profile on each Web site, or worse, by U.S. Mail.
If I ever return to Corporate America, I won't have to fill out a traveler profile, I merely would have to update my employer information (cost center, etc.).
Once we have been able to store all of my travel details, we can eliminate all of those plastic (and paper) ID cards I am forced to carry on every trip, whether business or pleasure. All I would need is a Frequent Traveler ID Card, which of course could also be used by the Transportation Security Administration as the "Registered Traveler" ID Card.
At that point in time, we will have created my ultimate dream: "A Beautiful Wallet."
Andres W. Menkes, CTC, is chairman and CEO of Princeton, N.J.-based Partnership Travel consulting LLC.