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| Wednesday, 18 July 2012 |
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| TRAVELPORT HOSTS E-VOLVE EXECUTIVE FORUM IN VANCOUVER | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Key executives brief agents on the latest technology trends and strategies; unveil enhanced Agencia in collaboration with Air Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amanda Stutt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The forum brought travel agent partners up to speed on the latest technology trends and changes, and facilitated a platform where agents discussed challenges and posed questions to Travelport’s tech support team. Travelport operates the Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan global distribution systems (GDS), and according to internal statistics, these systems can respond to up to 900 air, hotel and travel queries per second around the world. Maurita Baker, Travelport’s managing director, Canada, explained the company’s latest initiative- an enhanced version of Agencia, in partnership with Air Canada. “Today marks a very exciting day for the Canadian travel industry because today we have unveiled our enhanced Agencia,” Baker said to audience applause. “Agencia is the only web-based agency desktop tool that shops and books all of the GDS airline content- well over 350 airlines, as well as a direct connection to Air Canada. It provides full Air Canada content alongside all of the carriers available through the GDS, and does this in a manner that is very efficient,” said Baker. The Agencia product supports Air Canada’s merchandizing functionality, and makes it easier to book with the airline.
“What’s available today in a fragmented way of having to go onto different websites and different ways of booking is [now] available on just one desktop, and that includes Tango fares, flight passes, all of Air Canada’s ancillary services, and what this does is really reduce the cost for the travel agencies through the efficiency gains,” Baker explained. “The mission to remove complexity and enable travel agents to achieve quick results,” she said. Baker also outlined current travel industry trends, such as the fact that accommodation bookings have surpassed air bookings, and mobile travel booking has grown 1000 per cent. Derek Sharp, president and managing director, the Americas, said that Travelport’s collaboration with Air Canada and the delivery of Agencia demonstrates the company’s ability to develop next generation distribution and shopping solutions. “Our technologists have spent a lot of time talking about the ‘apple’ mentality of, how do we create an environment where we’re allowing our partners and our friends to bring in the best content we can, things we may never come up with ourselves, but that we’re empowering through the ecosystem in Travelport to make that available to you,” said Sharp. Graham Wareham, senior director, distribution, consumer direct, Air Canada, was also on hand at the event. Wareham said it took six years of collaboration between Air Canada and Travelport to produce Agencia, and that Air Canada is committed to the partnership. “In 2008, we signed an agreement for Agencia1 which we thought was going to be revolutionary and really help Air Canada and the agency community... today, Agencia2 is the result of that,” he said. “We’re spending a lot of time and effort innovating and trying to stay relevant to your and our customers. The airline-distributor relationship can’t be dysfunctional, and the travel agent can‘t be stuck in the middle. There has to be a better way- and I believe we’ve achieved that [with] the Air Canada- Travelport relationship,” said Wareham. Travelport is hosting a product showcase and technology workshop at the Terminal City club throughout the day today, and another product showcase and E-Volve Executive Forum in Calgary tomorrow. For more information, go to our calendar page.
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