TECHNOLOGY CREATES NEW OPPORTUNITIES

TRAVEL MONITOR

New product announcements by two of Asia-Pacific's leading travel technology companies indicate how they are seeking out new opportunities during tough times in the travel industry. Singapore-based Abacus is targeting small and medium-sized travel agents while Madrid-based Amadeus, which has a regional office in Bangkok, is targeting corporate travellers.

Like all industry sectors, travel technology companies are facing new stresses in an age of proliferating travel websites, direct bookings and cost-cutting by both travellers and companies. At the same time, Amadeus and Abacus themselves face pressure from airlines to lower their booking fees.

However, they have maintained the business-to-business (B2B) strategy of providing technological solutions for their thousands of corporate users, rather than marketing directly to consumers, which would effectively make them competitors with their own clients.

These companies can take comfort in the fact that even as travellers have more opportunities than ever to seek out low prices, the industry still badly needs well-trained travel agents, hotel and airline staff who can help customers supported by trusted technology.

Amadeus said its new suite of mobile solutions, to be unveiled soon, has been designed to enhance the safety of business travellers and provide efficient approval workflow and itinerary-based location information on demand. This is based on the findings of research with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives last year which evaluated the mobile needs of corporations.

Workable on all major mobile operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry, the new solutions will help the business traveller be more productive on the road as well as to help companies improve their business during the financial crisis.

Travellers will be able to store complete itineraries on their mobile devices and get push-button access to flight schedules, hotel addresses and check-in information. There are no roaming fees, a critical requirement for cost-conscious corporations.

Travel approvers in a company can also confirm or reject trips via their mobile, thus avoiding bottlenecks when they are away from their desks.

A key feature will be a traveller tracking and security tool that will allow a travel manager to reach out to travellers who may be at risk during an emergency; send SMS notifications before, during and after their trip; and send information via e-mail to all employees with planned trips for a given destination.

Amadeus plans to expand its focus on corporate travel by utilising the power of mobile technology to help corporations manage their global travel programmes more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Its technology is used by more than one million business travellers in more than 2,500 corporations, such as Altria, Cemex, Daimler, Ericsson, Huntsman, Nestle', Total and Thales.

Abacus plans to help agencies streamline and automate their mid- and back-office functions such as booking and issuing documents, settling transactions, inventory management and real-time reporting. It believes that with SME travel agents facing life-and-death issues in an age of globalisation and corporate bankruptcies, they need to improve staff productivity and free them from time-consuming paperwork while reducing costly mistakes caused by human error.

They also need the ability to analyse data on sudden shifts in market conditions. All this has to be done in a way that speeds up utilisation rates and reduces repetitive data inputting.

Abacus designed the new features to work off the shelf with zero or low investment from agencies in new hardware or software. It also allows for the agency's business volume to increase.

According to a recent Microsoft survey, 52% of potential travellers search three or more sites before booking airfare, 42% spend between one and four weeks weighing travel options, while 17% spend more than one month.

A different survey by Frommers Unlimited found half of those surveyed struggled with poorly constructed, confusing and inaccurate travel websites. Half were dissatisfied with content, citing insufficient information about the destination, hotel, or transport. Respondents also were frustrated by sites that did not respond to e-mail inquiries or did not allow online booking.

Imtiaz Muqbil is executive editor of Travel Impact Newswire, an e-mailed feature and analysis service focusing on the Asia-Pacific travel industry.