World Travel Market - WTM - unveils the hottest trends in technology & online travel!

Based on a press release from WTM 12 November 2007:

“The Internet is now acknowledged as a major driving force for the travel industry and underpins much of the way we do business today. With Technology and Online Travel moving at such a fast pace, the industry needs to know what the next important new trends will be so that travel sites remain competitive”, said Fiona Jeffery, Chairman of World Travel Market. “WTM‘s seminar programmes will be covering the most recent online travel advances to show people how to use technology to maximize business advantage.”

Technology and Online Travel exhibitors at WTM Companies exhibiting at World Travel Market’s Travel Technology and Online Area include: 2ergo, 360TravelGuide.com, AffiliateFuture.com, Applied Card Technologies Ltd, BarMate Ltd, , BiznetIIS, boo.com, CodeGen Ltd, Comtec, Conrad Advertising, E-Clear (UK) PLC, FastBooking, Final Quadrant Solutions Ltd, GlobeTrack, G-rez, Hexaware Technologies Ltd, Hostelsclub.com, Intracom IT Services, JohnHenry.net, MICROS Travel, Moneydirect, Nozio - Internet for tourism (Netplan), Open Destinations, Open Hospitality, Orbville.com, Quietvox, Retail Gateway Ltd, Rezgateway, SynXis, T I Infotech Pvt Ltd, TouristWay Software Engineering GmbH, Tourplan, TravelCLICK Inc, Travelmarket.com, TravelRes Ltd, TX Immersive Ltd and WebSource Europe Ltd.

Many of these exhibitors at WTM reflect the trends that took hold this year: Online booking – used by 17 million in the UK with a 200% increase in Czech Republic according to EyeforTravel research, as travel accounted for 200 million searches a month on the Internet.

Environment concerns – such as lastminute.com’s initiative to extend carbon offsetting and WTM’s own World Responsible Tourism Day.

Web 2.0 social networking sites – with reviews rising to 10 million in 12 months, setting the pace for C2C (Consumer to Consumer) marketing.

Virtual travel – in which ‘Second Life’ paved the way.

Video blogging – whereby travellers share videos on the blogosphere.

Self-booking tools - saving 25% in costs.

Affiliate site sales - making £2 billion in UK online sales.

After Web 2.0, it’s now Travel 3.0 – heralding the commercialisation of social networking sites.

Cellphones promised on planes – Airbus winning approval in Europe to install an on-board system for cell phones.

Travel pods in shopping malls – pioneered by Thompson.

A Tour of the Technology & Online Travel Sector @ WTM: 2ergo, the AIM listed provider of convergent mobile communication solutions, is launching its Next Generation of Interactive Messaging. Providing convergent mobile communication solutions, 2ergo is showcasing its MultiSend messaging suite, which is a range that provides new levels of interaction and engagement between organisations by using personalized messages with in-built response mechanisms. Companies already signed up include travel giant Thomas Cook, major UK car rental company National Car Rental, and publishers Reed Business International.

Virtual images that can transport users to destinations from their living room are increasingly seen as a must-have for travel sites. 360TravelGuide.com provides the world's largest free access panoramic image library for virtual tours, interactive maps and travel guides. With these 360TravelGuide provides users with a virtual stroll in any of the world’s capitals or regions. 360TravelGuide has the world’s largest library of virtual travel images featuring over 3,000 hotels and 10,000 sights and attractions in cities & resorts worldwide. Clients include TUI, Millennium Copthorne, HAL, Gazetteers & the BBC.

AffiliateFuture.com, a leading performance marketing network, delivers tens of thousands of transactions per week to over 650 advertisers. Affiliate sales are booming as reports show these have grown to over £2 billion in the UK alone. AffiliateFuture.com specialises in airlines, tour operators, accommodation, vehicle rental, transfers, and travel essentials. Clients include Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Airtours, Cosmos, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, and Sixt Vehicle Rental. For travel businesses wanting to increase their earning potential, AffiliateFuture's network helps by allowing merchants to advertise on their sites, and paying each month when these adverts generate visits, leads or sales.

Smart card specialist Applied Card Technologies Ltd (ACT) designs, develops, installs and assists in the operation of e-commerce and smart card systems, ACT’s IT solutions already power some of the world's largest and most popular city visitor programmes. These include the New York Pass, the Dublin Pass and the Philadelphia Pass.

More recently ACT systems have enabled Nottinghamshire County Council’s go-live for the Freedom Card scheme. It is one of a number of innovative transport projects in the UK focusing on ITSO interoperable smart card ticketing with over 140,000 card holders.

BarMate Ltd supplies innovative, guest-focused technology solutions to the hotel market. One of the company’s first products, BarMate, allows guests to request service from the comfort of their sun lounger, wherever they are located in the resort. This can provide substantial increased revenue and improved service to customers.

Through the development and provision of web-based systems and applications, BiznetIIS provides affordable solutions to Tourism Organisations, Operators and Hotel Chains to maximise online travel potential through the development and support of Reservation, Dynamic Packaging and Affiliate Marketing Solutions. Their next generation online travel tools include intelligent Internet solutions, e-business suites and business improvement systems, e-commerce, mobile solutions, bespoke e-learning solutions and customised applications.

Clients include Shell, Ulster Bank, many Northern Ireland government departments, colleges, foundations, National Standards Authority Ireland, Citizens Advice Bureau, hotel groups like Hotels Ireland and My Kinda Town (London UK).

boo.com is a relatively new type of travel site from Web Reservations International (WRI), combining search functionality, social networking, reviews and pricing all within one site. Boo.com allows users to search over 2,400 destinations and book directly with the hotel. Boo.com’s parent company, Web Reservations International, delivers online reservations to over 50,000 properties in 165 countries through a network of owned sites and affiliate partners. Customers can choose from five-star hotels to simple hostels around the world through major online brands such as hostelworld.com, worldres.com, hostels.com, trav.com and boo.com.

TravelBox Technology from CodeGen Ltd provides an innovative distribution platform with comprehensive travel business processing software. Providing fast, efficient and effective business solutions for all types of travel organisations, it is the ultimate in versatility and flexibility. Billed as the perfect solution for any sized company it uses next-generation technology for platforms and connectivity protocols to meet today’s challenges. Products are aimed at Airlines, Car hire suppliers, Cruise operators, Destination management companies and Excursion providers, Global distribution service providers, Ground product distributors, Hoteliers, Tour Operators, Travel agencies and Web portals.

Comtec – Europe’s technology is used by Travel Agents and Tour Operators to enhance the effectiveness of travel distribution via their call centres, retail outlets, customer websites and their homeworkers. The market-proven travel selling and management systems encompass EasySell, WebSell, Travelink and TravelCat, and are designed to increase productivity, enhance service levels and improve operational effectiveness. Comtec has over 650 valued customers, including the UK's leading travel retailers, online travel specialists and over 70 tour operators, comprising First Choice, Coop, Sky Travel, Thomas Cook, Airmiles and Hayes & Jarvis.

Conrad Advertising leads the UK in direct response advertising services to the travel industry. Their latest Pay Per Click advertising service maximises the results travel companies can achieve online. Conrad Advertising has teamed up with TTG to bring 'The Wall of Fame' competition to the World Travel Market. They have commissioned caricaturist Simon Ellinas on Meridian Days (Monday 12th and 13th November 2007) and visitors are invited to be sketched on the stand (no. TT3020). The sketches are a gift to those who take part and a selection of the funniest will be featured in Friday 23rd November's edition of TTG.

Visit TTG on stand UKI1600 and monitor the wall as it grows! Smart card operator, E-Clear (UK) PLC, provides large scale e-travel merchants with one stop-shop cross border credit and debit card acquiring and processing solutions enabling e-commerce, POS and ATM payment transactions in a flexible and secured way. E-Clear is one of the leading companies for card acquiring and payment processing worldwide. E-Clear handles the capture, authorisation and settlement of all major international credit and debit card payments helping high-transaction volume merchants improve their turnover by reducing their risk and payment costs.

FastBooking is an online booking company dedicated to helping hotels develop their Internet sales. With the FastBooking Engine at the heart of the device, a whole global program of Internet development becomes available to hoteliers, encompassing portals, representation on the GDS/IDS, automated competitive monitoring and simultaneous multi-site updating.

FastBooking’s main aim is to increase internet bookings on websites. The company provides a unique selection of over 3500 selected independent hotels based on the criteria of quality, comfort and service to book online and to access, in real time, the hotels' availabilities and promotional offers. Fast Booking are able to offer the best choice of hotels at best prices with discounts of up to 60%.

Final Quadrant Solutions Ltd FinalQuadrant SuiteCase™ is an award-winning product from market leader Final Quadrant Solutions. Providing ERP solutions for corporate travel, leisure travel, travel agency, wholesalers and resellers, it has an integrated booking engine, multiple third party connectivity interfaces (GDS, payment gateways etc.), fares management (negotiated and published) and back office suite. Essentially it harmonises all departments in travel companies to meet the demands of their end customers.

FinalQuadrant Solutions recently received a global award from Microsoft for the Best Customer Experience. The product is seen to help enhance revenues, reduce costs and provide superior customer services by empowering travel companies with low cost of ownership, rapid time to productivity and high returns on their technology investment.

GlobeTrack is tour operator software providing an integrated travel management solution for tour operators and agents. A complete web back office system, GlobeTrack is particularly suited to operators specialising in tailor made itineraries, FIT packages and groups. It manages the entire business process including quotations, documents, accounts and reports. GlobeTrack has three options - Lite, Professional & Enterprise. Clients range from Golf Tour Operators and Fly/Drive Holiday Operators to Package suppliers and Charter operators.

G-rez by Great Hotels Organisation is the largest independently-owned reservation service provider globally. It claims to be the first truly integrated central reservations system for the 21st century, providing the technology and tools to let hotels manage all electronic distribution channels through a single point of entry. G-rez provides over 1,500 hotels with the technology to manage GDS, ADS, website and voice reservations through a single point of entry. G-rez owns G-wiz, which is considered to be the next generation in hotel booking engines. G-rez not only provides technology, but also vital strategic advice to ensure that hotels receive maximum bookings through these important channels.

Hexaware Technologies Ltd is a specialised IT service provider, with a focus on Travel, Transportation, Hospitality & Logistics (TTHL), supplying its services to eight out of the world’s top 20 Airlines. It also offers solutions for Airline Passenger Services and Air Cargo systems and boutique services on E-ticketing, Airline MRO and Airline Revenue Accounting.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the latest buzzword from Hexaware in relation to solutions for major brands such as Microsoft, SAP, Peoplesoft and Oracle. Hexaware Technologies revenues grew 41% to $64 million for the second quarter ended June 30, 2007 due to impressive new client additions, higher billing rates, a healthy order book and a new Enterprise Risk Management venture.

Aimed at the backpacker market, HostelsClub.com is a young, vibrant and dynamic company dedicated to providing the budget traveller with a one-stop-shop for their travel needs, and dedicated to saving accommodation providers time, energy and money. The portal provides an online engine for searching and booking their accommodation at most destinations worldwide.

The HostelsClub.com online booking service has over 750,000 visitors every month from all corners of the globe. HostelsClub.com has a highly successful Affiliate Program which generates income for hostels, hotels, and campsites all over the world. As the leading budget online travel provider Hostelworld.com had their busiest summer this year.

One of the largest multinational technology groups in South East Europe, Intracom IT Services operates subsidiaries in 18 countries and serves more than 500 customers with international activities, accounting for almost 50% of its annual revenue.

Through its well-established FirstCLASS™ TMS software platform developed for the management, distribution and retailing of travel and tourism products/services, Intracom provides an optimal solution for tour operators, tourism associations, destination marketing organisations and other major players of the industry. This is to promote and retail their travel products and services. Any travel web site can be linked to FirstCLASS, effectively transforming it into a front-line system for an organisation's business activities via the Internet.

JohnHenry.net is a London-based new media agency with specialised experience in the international luxury hotel and travel industry. Offering bespoke, intelligent, user-friendly and commercial design and marketing solutions, JohnHenry uses its industry expertise and technical know-how to provide stylish content. Creating websites, CD-ROMs, email solutions and much more, John Henry employs a potent mix of careful planning, imaginative design, technical expertise and attention to detail to project a luxury image for travel businesses.

Special success in this sector has come from working with some of the biggest and best names in the business such as Como Hotels, The Dorchester Collection, Rocco Forte Hotels, Shire Hotels, Conrad Meetings and The Lanesborough, to name but a few. The latest site launch is for Office Concierge, a leading independent provider of Reception Management Services in London.

MICROS Travel, formerly RedSky IT, has over 30 years experience in the travel technology market place. MICROS Travel offers the independent agent the technology to drive the business forward with web-based dynamic packaging search and booking tools, mid/back office systems and a portfolio of products for corporate agencies, cruise travel, hotels and resorts.

A world leading developer of enterprise applications serving the hospitality and specialty retail industries exclusively, MICROS offers restaurants, hotels and the leisure and entertainment industry with complete information management solutions including software, hardware, enterprise systems integration, consulting and support.

Moneydirect is a joint venture with Amadeus and Sabre, providing an industry solution to automate payments for the global travel industry. The solution enables businesses to streamline payment and collection processes, delivering significant advantages in terms of efficiency, customer service, increased productivity and improved cash flows to your business.

Moneydirect’s easy to use, secure and reliable solutions already have nearly 6,000 customers for whom they securely manage more than US$2 billion annually in global travel payments on its best in class processing platform. Moneydirect aims to significantly increase efficiencies and reduce reliance on manual processes.

Nozio – Internet for tourism (Netplan) presents a compelling solution for hotels looking to increase their direct sales. Managing more than 1,000 hotel web sites, Nozio offers a multi-language Travel Guides Portal for independent tourists that love to book directly from the hotel official web sites without any extra cost. Nozio also offers hotel marketing, travel marketing and hotel websites as well as their world travel guides and world hotels direct bookings from official websites.

Aimed at travel agents and tour operators, Open Destinations is a leading travel technology product and services company, offering a Travel Studio reservation system for the world’s leading tour operators. Their Fare Studio is for scheduled and private fares and they also offer B2C and B2B e-commerce solutions; off-shore development; business process outsourcing (BPO); and travel IT consultancy.

Focusing exclusively on the travel industry, Open Destination enables customers to sell more product at a greater margin through more sales channels, while being more efficient with leaner, effective customer-facing organisations. First Choice Holidays PLC has selected Open Destinations as its supplier of technology and associated services for a number of its North American based tour operator brands.

Open Hospitality provides complete web strategy services exclusively to the hotel community. Built by hoteliers for hoteliers, Open’s core focus is migrating hotels’ off-line marketing initiatives into a comprehensive, all inclusive online presence. The customized web design, high yielding email campaigns and SEO strategies have won critical acclaim with several prestigious industry awards and the highly sought after ‘Google’ certification. The recently launched OPEN Interactive is a new division that offers advanced expertise in website design, development and online marketing.

Orbville.com Orbville.com is Scandinavia’s leading travel search engine. Orbville helps travellers find the right trip at the right price by comparing over 600 travel companies. The network includes 70 of Scandinavia’s leading media sites that use the search engine to deliver unbiased travel information to their readers and visitors. Visitors can explore the world from above with satellite photos and share their holiday movies.

Quietvox is a specialist provider in the production and rental of wireless audio assistance for live presentations.

Retail Gateway Ltd is launching their product for the first time in the UK. Retail Gateway Ltd provides an extensive range of e-payment and billing solutions such as credit and debit cards, mobile phone top-ups, loyalty card applications, prepay cards, gift cards, account payment cards, contactless card terminals. An impressive client list among telecoms companies includes T-Mobile, Vodafone, Tesco, 3, Fresh Mobile and Mobile World and in the financial arena, Visa, Eurocard Mastercard, Solo and Visa Electron. Already in Spain, Germany and Ireland, the company now wants to focus on the UK to hit the hotel market where a lot of interest has been shown in mobile networks.

Rezgateway is a worldwide leader in software for the travel industry that provides a one vendor solution for all technological needs of tour operators and travel distributors, receptors, destination management companies, airline operators and event planners.

The latest launch of Rezpackage 3.0 provides powerful, cost effective and easy to use platforms to manage and distribute travel inventory. These enable travel companies to gain a competitive advantage at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Using Rezgateway, customers can easily create, manage, integrate and distribute travel inventory (air, car, hotel, cruise, attractions, show tickets, golf) using Internet technologies.

SynXis from Sabre Holdings business provides hotel distribution and Internet marketing services globally. SynXis is the industry leader in distribution management services and technology with over 8,000 properties worldwide using their products. The RedX(tm) system gives hotel managers easy-to-use tools to manage the reservation and distribution process via all channels including GDS/IDS, website booking engine, direct voice and even extranets.

The dynamic and evolving nature of web and search engine marketing presents formidable challenges for any company. Today this can mean the adoption and integration of emerging technology solutions such as Web 2.0, social media strategy and monitoring, and the establishment of key performance indicators to enhance hoteliers' business.

T I Infotech Pvt Ltd offers end-to-end information technology consulting, e-commerce solutions, application development and management consulting and implementation and back end support of advanced networks and software applications. Clients include TUI India, Go India, Select Hotels and Select Vacations for TUI India. T I Infotech Pvt Ltd is a company promoted by group of highly experienced IT professional with 360degree travel technology solution expertise in the travel & tourism industry

TouristWay Software Engineering GmbH provides interactive maps with geo-referencing systems as well as customisable graphics in its Portal, Operator and Host editions of TouristWay software. A flexible and customisable platform to develop travel portals, it offers all the modules needed not only to run a powerful search and booking engine, but also to administer reservation workflow, suppliers and extra services.

One of the most advanced software frameworks to create tourism portals and online-booking systems, TouristWay’s key-features are designed to bring to market the most cost-effective solutiosn to build travel portals. Equipped with state of the art web-based tools, the software can be up and running in a few days and completely customisable.

Tourplan is an international travel tour operator software company with offices in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Australasia serving over 260 clients in 40 countries. Tourplan is dedicated to providing tour operators with integrated packaged software for back and mid office, front office and Internet functions plus installation, training and support services.

Scalable with power and performance aimed at the largest tour operators, Tourplan also offers more modest, practical solutions for small and medium size tour operators. The systems are designed exclusively for FIT bookings; group bookings; scheduled (SIC) tours; series tours; adventure, safari and eco tours; sports tours; educational tours; and cultural tours.

TravelCLICK Inc defines next generation intelligent hotel e-marketing - a powerful single solution for hotel merchandising that includes market intelligence, reservations, Internet marketing and GDS advertising. All these are designed to work together to help hoteliers build brand identity, increase reservations and maximize online revenue through intelligence, statistics & trends reporting.

Serving over 12,000 customers in 140 countries, TravelCLICK solutions help hotels sell rooms smarter and drive long-term profitability. They also maximize asset ROI by combining innovative market analysis with advanced technology to develop and implement high-return strategies.

Travelmarket.com Travelmarket is a Danish IT and media company that publishes the travel portal travelmarket.com as well as develops websites and booking software for the travel industry. With Travelmarket, companies in the travel industry achieve free web production as they purchase marketing services on travelmarket.com. Later this year Travelmarket will launch a new international travel search engine.

TravelMole is the most highly acclaimed and largest global online community for the Travel and Tourism Industry with over 450,000 registered travel and tourism professionals worldwide (78k Europe/Russia; 142k N. America; 18k Asia/Pacific, and 15k in other countries). 7.1 million email copies of various TravelMole wires are broadcast globally every month.The TravelMole.com web site registers 8.5 million hits each month

TravelRes Ltd, the online hotel reservation service powered by hotel.de offers 210,000 hotels for business and private customers. Numerous advantages include:corporate discount rates, best price guarantee and call centre 24/7. This guarantees unparalleled market and price transparency for booking customers. All use is free of charge.

Every day, some 1,200 new customers join the 1.3 million registered customers of hotel.de. The company is focusing on expansion into European markets through the international ‘TravelRes’ brand aiming for market leadership in European hotel reservation services.

TX Immersive Ltd are providers of 360° immersive video solutions, which TXi offers as the IMC Telemmersion system, capturing everything in one pass. Played as a video tour, on a website or PC, users can now roam around a location, looking in every direction. TXi look set to revolutionise the promotion of tourist destinations through their latest Immersive video technology - the IMC Telemmersion® system & the full range Telemmersive™ services now available through TXi Ltd.

Providing front and backend solutions for the travel industry built to address today’s changing market dynamics, WebSource Europe delivers mission critical e-commerce solutions for travel businesses through advanced travel software development for global clients. These include website design for effective online sales, experienced XML interfacing to suppliers, integrated back office systems supporting multiple supplier search, direct contract management - including B2C and B2B agent /affiliate interfaces, dynamic packaging and more. The company specialises in providing high quality, cost-effective solutions that are ideally suited for all sizes of travel businesses to reduce sales cycles and increase productivity.

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For further information on the above, key concepts and themes during World Travel Market, exhibitor activity and events, please refer to www.wtmlondon.com or contact the World Travel Market Press Office on +44 (0) 1580 201178

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Published by Travel Explorations, 13 November 2007. Read more about the travel market on www.TravelExplorations.com