La Quinta has signed an agreement with Pegasus Solutions to begin implementation of the RezView central reservation system for all La Quinta Inns and La Quinta Inn & Suites.
This deal makes La Quinta one of the largest hotel chains to use RezView CRS. Pegasus has been providing La Quinta with electronic distribution and commission processing services since 1996.
Under this new agreement, Pegasus will work with Keane Inc. to seamlessly integrate RezView CRS into La Quinta's business infrastructure including its loyalty program, Web site booking engine and data warehouse. Pegasus will also implement a two-way interface into La Quinta's property management system to provide a centralized, single-image of its inventory, rates and reservations.
"RezView CRS provides us with a system that has the flexibility to meet the demands of more than 500 properties and the scale to enable us to grow as we continue to expand our business," said Wayne Goldberg, La Quinta president and chief executive officer. "Pegasus Solutions has proven itself as a trusted vendor and we are confident this relationship will complement and enhance La Quinta's business strategy going forward."
RezView CRS is the most widely used CRS worldwide with more than 7,500 properties including others operated by The Blackstone Group, the private-equity firm that owns La Quinta.
"La Quinta's selection of RezView CRS demonstrates how Pegasus can serve hoteliers through a wide range of services that help them keep pace with today's technology," said Mike Kistner, Pegasus chief operating officer. "This significant deal represents a new focus at Pegasus--aligning with the best technology firms to deliver complex solutions. Our customers gain the benefit of the great ideas and skills we bring in addition to a seamless implementation of the solutions."
An award winning reservations service, RezView CRS is used by 60 of the world's top hotel brands processing approximately 50,000 reservations everyday.
Source: BreakingTravelNews
October 6, 2006
La Quinta hotels selects Pegasus
October 5, 2006
Travelocity sets its eyes on India....
US-based internet travel service provider Travelocity has acquired Asian travel portal Zuji for $34 million. Zuji has presence in Australia, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan. Following the acquisition, Travelocity intends to expand its presence into China and India.
"This acquisition, coupled with our acquisitions in Europe last year, demonstrates how we are continuing to expand the Travelocity network globally,” Travelocity CEO Michelle Peluso has been quoted in the press release.
The competition in Indian online travel business is getting hot. And why it should not be! Norwest Capital Partners (one of the investors in the recently announced Yatra Online) estimates that the Travel Industry is worth about 40 Billion USD in India.With MakeMyTrip and Indiatimes having a headstart in the business, this is a space to watch out for.
Travelocity, which announced its plans for India in May this year, is currently developing its product offering and building its India management team to offer Indian travellers access to a customised version of the international Travelocity online travel site.
According to Travelocity, selecting an experienced, local managing director was a key piece to the puzzle of building a winning travel business in India and offering Indian travellers a best in class product.
The world’s largest online travel portal Travelocity has decided to open shop in India. The new Travelocity India website is expected to be launched in the fourth quarter of this year and will be built on the technology foundations of Zuji, a Singapore-based company acquired by Travelocity earlier this year.
“The future of travel bookings in India is online. Just as we have seen the trend towards online travel bookings grow rapidly in the US, and now in parts of Asia, we absolutely believe that the global trend to book travel online has begun to ‘find its feet’ in India,” Zuji CEO has been quoted by EyeforTravel as saying.
Travelocity has appointed Himanshu Singh as managing director of its India operation. In his new role Himanshu will be responsible for leading the Travelocity India strategy and team, including marketing, supplier relations, customer service and B2B opportunities.
Himanshu is part of the executive team at ZUJI, Travelocity's wholly owned operation in Asia Pacific, and a leading online travel company in the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to joining Travelocity, Himanshu worked as group head of global distribution and electronic sales and marketing at Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. He had also stints with companies including Hotel Leela Venture and Traveljini.com
ps: Donald Trump continues his self obsession, and launches GoTrump.com (a website in association with Travelocity), to help users "travel trump style"! Its worth a look!
October 3, 2006
Dynamic Packaging – What is in It??
Returning to work from a long weekend has been a feel good factor to me. I met Ajith in the morning today at office. Apart from the commonality that we both are from the same domain, unlike me Ajith is a die hard techi. The crux of our discussion was about “Dynamic Packaging in the Travel & Leisure Domain” and how it is critical to today's travel industry as airlines, hotels, tour operators and travel agencies realize the financial and commercial benefits of offering custom packages to consumers.
For some time, consumers have been purchasing packaged vacations. However, in the last few years, the travel industry has been buzzing with the catch phrase “Dynamic Packaging”. Many vendors claim to offer dynamically packaged vacations, but the true definition has been a topic of great debate.
So what exactly is Dynamic Packaging??
Today’s online travel consumers manually visit multiple Online Travel Portals [OTP's] to plan their trip, register their personal information many times, spend hours or days waiting for response or confirmation, and make multiple payments by credit card. Lack of functionalities is discouraging consumers – Where as in practicality there is a critical demand for an ability to create, manage and update their itineraries in real-time.
Dynamic Packaging can be defined as the combination of different travel components, bundled and priced in real time, in response to the requests of the consumer or booking agent.
Leading OTP’s let travelers build their own vacation by dynamically mixing-and-matching the purchase of airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars into one bundled low price, inclusive of fees and taxes.
The key point of differentiation between dynamic and traditional vacation packages is the ability for the travel consumer to dynamically tap into several, separate inventory management systems. The air could come from an airline’s inventory system or a GDS (global distribution system) the hotel room could originate in the hotel chain’s inventory system, a GDS or a block of inventory managed by a tour operator or vacation packager and the activities (show tickets, tours, etc.) could each come from a variety of different systems.
The entire process offers travel consumers access to a tremendous selection of inventory and is completely seamless to the travel consumer, who is unaware of where the inventory originates. A dynamic package is assigned a super PNR (passenger name record) as a reference code for the entire package. The super PNR reference code makes it easy to keep track of the reservation and its contents. Each individual component also has its own sub-PNR as assigned by the airline or hotel chain. Sub-PNRs reference the individual component and the system from which it originated. Though compiled by selecting inventory from a variety of systems and sources, the entire dynamic vacation package is easy to track, retrieve and modify.
Customers can be sure they are getting exactly what they want by choosing an online provider that displays specific airline and flight information, rental car provider, and hotel chain and location on one screen before booking.
They give consumers a competitive advantage with -
Dynamic packaging platforms are based on an object-oriented XML architecture that allows seamless integration and migration of legacy and state-of-the-art systems. This offers stronger security and authentication between travel packagers, their retailers and consumers
The packaging company can quickly and easily connect suppliers to its new selling system platform Hub which is compliant with Open Travel Alliance specifications wherever possible.
These platforms are designed with procurement managers to secure products from selected suppliers based on specific travel queries and to return packaged responses according to validated pricing and business rules.
Without a second thought, today travel distributors that offer dynamic packages are raising the bar in the travel industry. Those that give travel consumers more variety, flexibility and booking incentives (found only with dynamically packaged vacation products) will continue to be on top of the competition curve.
Today the future of packaged travel is dynamic – and no doubts that it's here to stay. The new benchmark is being set – dynamic packaging is simply the most cost effective and reliant way for travel distributors to package, distribute and sell today.
