Well, I let go of some of my angst and wrote a piece for Tnooz.  The article identifies the three main findings in the report that I think start-ups have been overlooking.  The general size of the businesses that service the sector, the technological readiness, and the desire to distribute.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to promote or encourage new competitors to Rezgo, but I would like to see some problem solving coming from the start-up community.  All I’ve seen instead is the creation of new problems or the complete avoidance of existing ones.  Honestly, what are people getting a $1 M for these days?

Anyway, take a read of the article and let me know what you think?  Am I off base?  Am I just getting bitter in my old age?

http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/22/news/hot-stuff-or-flash-in-the-pan-a-dose-of-reality-about-tours-and-activities/

After six months of this new journey, I thought it might be worthwhile to share what I have learned.  At the very least, it may make your journey a bit easier, should you find yourself on the same path one day:

1. Anger and self pity get you nowhere – Blaming yourself for something like Diabetes is pointless and unnecessary.  Unlike Type 2 (Adult onset) Diabetes which CAN be prevented with a sensible diet and reasonable exercise, Type 1 Diabetes is not preventable.  It is an auto-immune disease which causes the Diabetics immune system to attack and kill the insulin producing cells in the pancreas.  Unlike Type 2 Diabetes, there is also no cure for Type 1 Diabetes.  My wife and I were angry for about 30 minutes but we quickly realized there was just no point to it.  We had to remain positive, focus on making the best of the situation, and ensuring that our daughter didn’t feel sorry for herself.  After all, if we felt sorry for her and treated her like she was broken, then she would probably feel that way about herself too.
   
2. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t – Type 1 Diabetes doesn’t restrict what you can do in your life, it just requires you to manage your life differently. My daughter loves swimming, soccer, and baseball.  She still does all these things, we just have to make sure she has enough carbs before, during, and after her sports and that we test her blood sugar regularly.  Instead of making Diabetes (and the requisite finger pokes and injections) a detraction, we just accept it as a part of our regular routine.
   
3. Educate yourself on healthy eating – Restaurant, Fast food, and processed foods are full of crap.  You probably already knew this one, but it didn’t really sink in until after the Diabetes happened.  For a normal seven year old, for example, a large Booster Juice or Orange Julius doesn’t sound like a bad thing.  But read the nutritional information and you find that these two beverages have over a CUP OF REFINED SUGAR in them each.  The next time you consider buying one of these for your healthy child, think about whether or not you would put a cup of sugar in a bowl and make your child eat it, because that’s exactly what you’re giving them.
4. Treat questions with patience and take the time to educate your friends, family, and strangers – As frustrating as it can be answering the constant questions and statements like “I thought you were healthy eaters”, education is so important to reducing ignorance about Type 1 Diabetes and building a strong support network around you and your family.  Because of the tremendous media coverage around Type 2 Diabetes, partly due to the ever increasing number of obese people in the U.S., there is a confusion between Type 1 and Type 2.  This confusion inevitably leads to incorrect assumptions about diet, weight, and overall healthiness.  My role, as a parent of a Diabetic, is not only to educate myself, but help educate those around me.
5. This is a life long journey, don’t sweat the small stuff – There is a lot to learn about Type 1 Diabetes in a short amount of time, just realize that you don’t need to know everything right away.  The thing with Type 1 is that you can never take a break from it, you can’t turn it off, ignore it, or just leave it until later.  It is there all the time and requires your constant attention.  Because of this, it will feel like it controls your life.  If you treat Diabetes with respect, manage it sensibly, and live your life as normally as possible, then you stand a strong chance of bringing some normalcy back to your life.

Life is all about learning new things.  I just never expected to have to learn about a disease like Type 1 Diabetes, and I certainly never thought it would affect my child.  In the end, you have choices with everything that you do in life.  Whether or not you choose to be a victim is up to you, but in my opinion, life is too short and too precious to waste on feeling angry about something for which you have no control.  I’ll enjoy want I can and manage the rest as best you can with the ones who mean the most to me.

1. Board members should be focused on governance and not on administration or execution.  The purpose of the Board of Directors is to provide oversight for the organization and to give direction to the executive team.  This means focusing on the strategic goals of the organization and ensuring that executive team is meeting the expectations of the Board and members/shareholders.
2. As a Board member, you represent the members/shareholders of the organization and work in THEIR best interests not your own.  When you sit at the board room table, you check your own business and interests at the door.  It is important to recognize that what you bring to the table is your experience, expertise, and specialized knowledge.  What you do not bring is your ego and your self interest.  Why? Because if you allow your self interests to prejudice your decision making, then you are not working in the best interests of the organization.
3. Do or do not, there is no try.  Yoda wasn’t a master Jedi for nothing.  His quote lives on as one of a pop culture “universal truth” that applies to so many things in life.  If you are elected to a Board or asked to join and agree to do it, do your homework and do your best.  Being on a board requires work including understanding the bylaws of the organization, knowing how meetings are run, and knowing your fellow board members and the executive team.  After all, how can you expect to work in the best interests of the organizations if you don’t know what they are all about.
4. Being on a Board is NOT an ego trip.  I have seen countless people nominate themselves for Board positions or try to get onto Boards to improve their credibility or position in the community.  Let me make this very clear… if your only intention in being on a Board is to satisfy some sense of self or to pad your resume then don’t do it.  Why? Because if your only intention is self serving then how can the organization expect you to act in it’s best interests and not yours?  Being on a Board REQUIRES that you satisfy your fiduciary duties and work on behalf of the organization.  If you can’t accept this, then don’t get involved in the first place.
5. When it’s time to go, go graciously.  Board positions, unless uncontested or filled by acclamation, are chosen by membership or shareholders during an election process.  This means that your position is not guaranteed and if the membership feels compelled to choose someone else to fill the Board seat, then you need to accept that and move on.  If you check your ego at the door and accept this reality, you’ll soon realize that not being elected or re-elected to the Board is not a bad thing, it just means that the membership/shareholders felt that someone else was better suited for the position.

If you have sat at the Board table, as I have, over the years, you have probably seen members come and go.  The ones that resonated the most with me were the ones that had unwavering ethics and a strong moral compass.  These are individuals I could trust to always be fair and reasonable in their approach to decision making and someone I could turn to if I had questions or needed clarification.  I can only hope that over time, I will have the opportunity to serve in that same capacity.  In the meantime, I will continue to do my best to remind my fellow Board members about their responsibilities and their accountability to the organizations they represent.

Originally posted on Philipcaines.com

Background:

Facebook is now fighting for the #1 spot against Google, and people are spending much more time on Facebook than Google.com itself, so it makes it an intelligent spot to place your ads. What makes Facebook so ideal is that it opens up a new realm of segmentation that not even Google can compete with. Never before have advertisers (read you) been able to speak to a very narrow and targeted market segment.

One marketer wrote:

Furthermore, their (Facebook’s) segmentation abilities are amazing; not only can you target based on age, location, and gender, but you target consumers based on religion, and relationship status. Even more amazing is their ability to create search parameters within users profile to advertise (e.g. “target anyone who lists Tool as their favorite band and Watership Down as their favorite book”). If you choose a larger campaign, you create a plethora of ultra-targeted ads in a sort of micro-segmentation.

As you can see you are able to zero in on your particular customer.

What does that mean?

Know yourself and your customer. Period.

For this example we will take a travel company / product that would benefit greatly from having a segmented product ad, and we will then go through the steps needed to make the campaign live.

Test Product:

Twilight Tours – This was inspired by Dazzled By Twilight

Here is what their product is: “Take a tour of actual Twilight locations in Forks and experience it for yourself!” They offer 3 different $39 daily tours.

So book fans are able to relive the locations as written in the Twilight series of books and as seen in the Twilight movies.

The demographics are a little interesting for Twilight fans, one would assume correctly that the main group of readers are young female teens, however there is an audience in the older age range as well.

Lisa Marks from the Guardian states “According to a survey of 5000 by movie ticket website Fandango, 95% of the respondents were female and 42% of them were 25 or older.”

Being as this tour is in Forks, Washington you have to consider how far people would be willing to travel to take the tour in order to really understand the scope.

So lets look at how an ad for this tour would play out in Facebook:

Step 1:

Click on “Advertising” at the bottom of the page

Step 2:

Click on “Create an ad”

Step 3:

In the “Design your ad” block you need to put in your destination URL (the web page that people will land on when they click the ad) I would recommend that you put them on a page where they can find more information about the product and have the ability to book directly, or able to find out more information. If you are comfortable with Google analytics, I would recommend adding campaign tags to your ads to ensure that you are tracking all of the leads that are coming in from Facebook.

The “Title” box is limited to 25 characters, so be sure that you capture attention quickly. For this ad we could use something along the lines of “Twilight Tour – Live It”

The body text needs also to be short, but intrigue the viewer to click on the ad. I used some of their copy: “Take a tour of actual Twilight locations in Forks and experience it for yourself! Exclusive Guided Twilight Tours from $39 USD. ”

The image upload box is important, if you can have an image that is 130px wide and 80px high to fill out the area completely. If not, it will scale the image for you.

Step 4:

Targeting. This is where it really gets interesting. For this ad, we will target our core demographic in the surrounding states as they will be the ones that are most likely to make the trip.

For country we will put the United states, and segment it by state/province.

Then enter Washinton, California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada.

For age we put “13 – 40″

For sex we will put “woman”

We can leave the “interested in” and “relationship” options alone.

Language we put in “English (all)”

This gives us an estimated reach of 7.4 million people, but we can do better than that.

Step 5:

For likes and Interests we can add as many criteria as we like to filter our target audience. As they all should have a love for the twilight series, we will enter that as the main interest. We can also add similar interests such as “eclipse”, “new Moon”, “Breaking Dawn”, “twilight series” and our good friend “Stephenie Meyer”.

We can leave education and work out.

“Connections on Facebook” is for targeting people in the pages, groups, or events that “You” own. So if I had a Twilight Fan Club group, I would be sure to add them to the list.

This gives us a target market of nearly 650 thousand people. Which sounds pretty good.

Step 6:

Here is the tricky bit of the ad, the Campaigns and Pricing.

If you are new to Facebook Ads, then you will want to “Create a new campaign”. Campaigns allow you to group multiple ads together for a variety of different segments. For this campaign, you will only have 1 ad. Name it something relevant, but don’t worry, it won’t be displayed to the public. I chose “Twilight Tour” as the campaign name.

The daily budget needs to be determined on your marketing budget. Keep in mind that this is a very captive audience and that these are the exact people that you want to reach out to, so spend enough to make an impact. I put $100 dollars as a general amount, but keep in mind that you need to work within your budget.

The schedule should be set up for a specific date range, this will prevent you from racking up a huge bill when your tours are not being offered. For this example I chose May 31st till August 31st.

It is almost always best to pay for clicks as opposed to impressions. A click ensures that the consumer read the ad and that they are interested in the product. Facebook recommends a “Max Bid” amount, which is dictated by the demographics that you have selected. If your bid is too low, your ad will not be shown to anyone. It makes sense to have the amount in the suggested bid range, which for this ad is $0.75. This should give me about 140 clicks per day.

Now is a good time to review your ad to ensure that it is appropriate, and then “Place Order”.

Tracking

From here on in you will see an increase in traffic on your site that will be sure to be ideal clients. I didn’t run this ad through as it would have charged my card, but I encourage you to experiment with Facebook ads, and see how you can make it work for your travel business.

This same segmentation can be applied to travel agency’s products, night clubs, cruise companies, and any more. Let me know if you need help setting up a Facebook ad campaign, I am always available as a consultant.

Further Reading:

http://subliminalpixels.com/facebook/how-to-set-up-and-track-facebook-ads/

Barriers to entry- There are very few physical barriers to getting set up with an arsenal of social media marketing tools. Most are free, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, others you will most likely have already, like a computer and an internet connection. The most confronting aspect of jumping in to the social media deep end is the preception that you will be losing control of your brand. This is a very common misconception, I’ve heard it from online marketing and sales people alike, but it’s just not the case. Your customers will talk about you, whether you are there to participate or not.

Essential tools- To sign up and get started, facebook.com and twitter.com are all you need, but to really take advantage of the data available it’s best to invest some time in to third party tools. For Twitter, you cant do better than Tweetdeck. Available for both PC and Mac, Tweetdeck allows you to run multiple Twitter accounts with real-time updates. Most importantly, Tweekdeck allows for real-time keyword searches to run 24/7, making it possible to track who is talking about the things that matter to you and your brand. For example, an operator who provides cycling tours of Vancouver could have multiple searches running that cover their keywords: Cycling Vancouver, Ride bike Vancouver, biking Van, etc. It’s important to keep things relevant and focus on keywords you believe your customers will be using in natural conversation.

I know it’s new, but with your help and engagement, we can get this party started.  Fan the Savvy Operator and keep learning.

Prerequisites:

Estimated Time for Completion: 10 min reading time

Details: Your booking page, whether you create it yourself, or you use a software product has to be secure.  If you are currently requesting credit card information on a page that is NOT secure, you are probably in violation of your merchant agreement and could face severe penalties if you do not secure it.  Okay, now that I’ve raised the red flag, let’s take a look at some simple precautions you can take to ensure your booking website is secure:

1. Secure certificate: Your booking website should be protected with a secure certificate.  If you are using a web host, you can ask them to set one up for you for your booking page.  In general, secure certificates cost between $99-$499 per year.  Set-up will also run about $100.  If you are using a software as a service booking system, make sure they are using a secure certificate during the booking process.  In most cases these hosted solutions will use a higher level of security and there will not be any additional cost associated with this.  If you have to install the system on your own website, then you may be required to set-up your own certificate.  If you have your own website but are using a web-based tour reservation system to handle your online bookings, then you probably won’t need to purchase your own secure certificate.
2. Use a payment gateway: If you plan on accepting payments on-line from your customers, then use an approved payment gateway to process your credit cards in real-time.  Using a payment gateway instead of taking credit card information manually or over the phone reduces your risk of credit card theft and ensures that your customer data is secured.  A payment gateway is particularly well suited to operators who sell vouchers for their tours or activities.  Specialist operators who sell high priced packages that require a deposit may not need a payment gateway because they tend to receive payments in steps. Popular payment gateways include PayPal Website Payments Pro, Authorize.net, Chase Paymentech, iTransact, Ogone, Payjunction, Eway, DPS Payment Express, and PPI Paymover.  Integrating a payment gateway can be tricky business and will require a developer if you plan on doing yourself.  If you are using a web booking system, they will probably support some or all of these popular gateways.  This alone, could say you $1500 – $2500 in development fees.

   But what about hosted payment pages such as 2checkout, Paypal standard payments, or bank specific payment pages?  These options are reasonable alternatives to fully integrated solution but can actually be much more cumbersome from an administrative standpoint and tend to have a much higher booking abandonment rate that integrated booking solution.  If the booking solution you plan to use only supports hosted payment pages, you may want to consider looking for a package that supports a more robust payment integration.

3. PCI Compliance: Even if you don’t plan on using a payment gateway, you should ensure that your booking page is PCI Compliant, which means that your site is scanned for vulnerabilities and checked to ensure that known security issues are addressed in a timely manner.  If you plan on integrating a payment gateway, you will be required to be PCI compliant before your gateway is activated.  If you use your own website and booking page, then you will be responsible for PCI compliance.  If you use a hosted tour operator software, then chances are that the software will go through its own PCI compliance.  If you use a web-based tour/activity booking system that is PCI compliant, it can save you about $500 per year in compliance scanning costs.  If the tour operator software you are using is not PCI compliant, you may want to consider switching to a booking system that is PCI compliant.

Questions to ask your developer or web booking software vendor:

1. Is the booking process secured with a high encryption secure certificate (256 bit or higher)?
2. Are you directly integrated with payment gateways or do you only support hosted payment pages?
3. Is the system PCI compliant?

If the your current booking form or web booking software vendor answers “No” to any of these questions, you should consider rectifying the situation by securing your booking form or switching to a more secure platform.

For more information, refer to the following related articles:

• What is PCI Compliance & How Does it Affect My Tourism Business
• Credit Card Best Practices that Reduce Charge Backs for Your Tourism Business
• Business Verification & Validation Services for Your Tourism Website

Outcome: Security and credit card safety are no laughing matter and your failure to protect your customers’ valuable personal and payment information can result in severe penalties.  By ensuring that your booking form is both secure and credit card safe is not difficult nor does it have to be expensive.  By partnering with the right software partner or developer (one who clearly understands the importance of PCI compliance and security) you can be sure your booking process is safe and secure.

Prerequisites:

Estimated Time for Completion: 20 min reading time

Details: By now you have probably realized that there are a number of software products available in the market that are marketed as “tour operator software”.  But how do you determine what features are best for your organization?

Needless to say there are a variety of systems available on the market.  There are two predominant groups; generalist systems that provide a variety of functions across a number of travel segments and specialist systems that are designed for a specific type of tour or activity business. Let’s take a closer look at what I mean:

Generalist systems: These are systems that provide functions outside of reservation, inventory, and customer management, in a specific vertical market.  For example a reservation system that provides accommodation bookings, activity bookings, newsletter management, pay per click advertising tracking, website content management, and banner ad management all in a single system.

Pros: These systems provide a little bit of everything and tend to be quite feature rich. They also tend to have tighter integration between the parts, so you can combine your newsletter with a pay per click campaign.

Cons: These systems tend to be overly complicated and though they can be quite feature rich, very few of the features tend to get used by the majority of users.  In my experience, these system, despite providing a variety of features, tend not to be particularly good at any one feature which results in an overly complex platform with limited practicality.  In a nutshell, generalist systems try to be everything to everyone, providing features for specialist tour operators, accommodation providers, and activity operators, but generally not serving any one segment particularly well.

Pricing: There are a number of pricing models for generalist systems, including flat monthly fees, booking fees, and license fees.  Since generalist systems don’t have any one particular specialization, pricing also tends to vary greatly within this group.  When reviewing the pricing model of a generalist system that charges a flat fee or license fee, ask yourself this question “What is the system provider’s motivation in continuing to make this system better?” In most cases, with a generalist system, the motivation is not to increase the number of reservations to your business but rather to sell more licenses/monthly subscriptions to other businesses.

Specialist Systems: These systems do not provide features or functions outside of the reservation, inventory, and customer management of a single segment.  For example a tour operator software system designed for tour and activity suppliers that provide fixed availability, fixed schedule tours/activities.

Pros: These reservation systems tend to be very good at what they do and are, as the name implies, specialized for a particular segment.  A tour operator software built for tour and activity suppliers, for example, would not support accommodation product or custom itineraries because it wouldn’t need to.  The system would also provide features such as vouchering, check-in, a point of sale for ticket office, and the ability to distribute inventory through established channels.

Cons: Specialist reservation systems are not very good at supporting products for which they were not designed.  An activity booking software, for example, would not be useful for a specialist tour operator who sells customized outbound tours.  The specialist software would generally have very specific functionality and features that could be integrated into an existing website or other platforms.  A specialist system, for example, would allow you to export your contacts to a format supported by a newsletter manager instead of trying to manage newsletters itself.

Pricing: Specialist systems tend to have a very simple pricing model based on the kind of product for which they were designed.  In most cases they are either booking fee or transaction fee based.  A specialist tour operator, for example, who is trying to use a system designed for a day or half day based tours and activities may not find the pricing model of the system particularly appealing.  Since the motivation of the specialist systems are generally much more refined and easily defined, the pricing model will be directly related to improving or increasing your businesses success.

Things to look for when reviewing booking software:

1. Easily accessible web demo – Take a look around the system and get a feel for what it can do.
2. Testimonials – Look for customer praise and testimonials.  Praise on non-corporate sites such as open customer support forums (such as Getsatisfaction.com) tend to be more trustworthy then those posted on a corporate site or companies own social network.
3. Simple web sign-up – Sign-up should be easy and not require a sales person to complete. This will give you a chance to test the system.
4. Online support – Look for a support website with knowledgebase. This shows that the company is confident in the capabilities of its system.
5. Commitment to customer support – Personalized customer support is essential to any business looking at conducting on-line bookings or looking into a tour operator software system.

As you review tour operator software systems ask yourself these two key questions:

1. What type of tour operator am I and does the system I am reviewing match my type of business?
2. Does the software charge based on a shared success model? If not, what is the software companies motivation for maintaining the software.

Outcome:You should have a better understanding of the two main types of tour operator software systems available on the market, the generalist and the specialist systems, including the pros and cons of  both types of systems.

Editor’s Note: I don’t usually publish press releases verbatim but this one refers to the upcoming special report called “When They Get There (and Why They Go)” which is all about the in-destination tour and activity segment.  Rezgo is also a sponsor of this report and I am personally very excited about the findings because I think it will put a spotlight on the value that small businesses bring and the impact they have on traveler experience.

PhoCusWright, the travel industry research authority on the evolving dynamics that influence how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect, today announced a partnership with the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), a 550+ member trade group dedicated to the sustainable development of adventure travel worldwide.

Through the partnership, the two organizations will explore trends in adventure travel, one of tourism’s most vibrant and promising sectors representing an estimated US$52 billion in outbound tourism from North and South America and Europe. PhoCusWright and the ATTA will produce groundbreaking new research that empowers tourism industry leaders to make informed strategic decisions and investments. The research will be released in an upcoming PhoCusWright Special Report: When They Get There (And Why They Go): In-Destination Events, Attractions & Activities.

“This pioneering research project will help us more completely define the value of the adventure travel industry and better understand consumer perceptions and spending behaviors in this burgeoning sector,” said Shannon Stowell, president of the Adventure Travel Trade Association. Adventure travel encompasses aspects of physical, cultural and environmentally-based travel and includes thousands of unique activities and destinations around the world.

When They Get There (and Why They Go), the new Special Report from PhoCusWright set for completion in the fourth quarter of 2010, evaluates the dynamics of all in-destination events, attractions and activities including the adventure travel niche. “The report delivers key data on activities and attractions and will really be the first to define this vital yet understudied sector of the travel economy,” says Douglas Quinby, PhoCusWright senior director, research. PhoCusWright and the ATTA will be the first to deliver key research related to these aspects of adventure travel. The findings are expected to shape the way tourism enterprises connect with travelers for years to come.

About PhoCusWright Inc.
PhoCusWright is the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect. Independent, rigorous and unbiased, PhoCusWright fosters smart strategic planning and tactical decision-making.

PhoCusWright delivers qualitative and quantitative research on the evolving dynamics that influence travel, tourism and hospitality distribution. Our marketplace intelligence is the industry standard for segmentation, sizing, forecasting, trends, analysis and consumer travel planning behavior. Every day around the world, senior executives, marketers, strategists and research professionals from all segments of the industry value chain use PhoCusWright research for competitive advantage.

To complement its primary research in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia, PhoCusWright produces several high-profile conferences and trade shows in the U.S. and Germany, and partners with conferences in Canada, China and Singapore. Industry leaders and company analysts bring this intelligence to life by debating issues, sharing ideas and defining the ever-evolving reality of travel commerce.

The company is headquartered in the United States with Asia Pacific operations based in India and local analysts on five continents.

About the Adventure Travel Trade Association
Established in 1990, the Seattle-based Adventure Travel Trade Association (www.adventuretravel.biz) is a global membership organization dedicated to unifying, networking, professionalizing, promoting and responsibly growing the adventure travel market. Association members include tour operators, destination marketing organizations, tourism boards, specialty travel agents, guides, accommodations, media and service providers. Host of the annual Adventure Travel World Summit executive trade conferences (www.adventuretravelworldsummit.com

), the Adventure Travel Trade Association also makes possible www.adventure.travel, the traveler’s hub of physical, cultural and nature-based adventure travel and guide to trusted tour operators from around the globe.

The OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel), the travel industry’s leading distribution specification/standards development organization, announces new projects ranging from functional enhancements to tours and activities to adding electronic miscellaneous document (EMD) information to support merchandising of additional services by airlines.

“As the travel industry comes out of the downturn, companies are refining business models to reflect economic changes and new service needs,” said Valyn Perini, executive director of OpenTravel. “Travel suppliers, along with their technology and distribution partners, come to OpenTravel to make sure their business needs are reflected in our standards so they can quickly and easily go to market with new products and services.”

The new work includes some segment-independent technical reference publications, and also ranges across several travel segments, including car rental, airline, and, led by Rezgo, the tours and activities segment.

“The time is right for tour and activity companies to start distributing through wider and more open channels because we are seeing more and more reservation systems come on-line.  To best serve this segment, those companies need tools to provide standard distribution connectors, not just for transactions but for content,” said Stephen Joyce, CEO of Rezgo. “By working with the leading reservation system providers to develop and promote standard messages we ensure that new entrants will also use the standards.  By leading the way now, OpenTravel creates a lasting legacy of openness and interoperability that will have long term positive impacts on the tour and activity segment.”

Projects underway include:

• Increase the functionality of tour messages and complement existing OpenTravel messages with a richer set of information that can be exchanged with trading partners, including additional product and supplier information, led by Rezgo.
• Adding no-show fees and terms into car rental messages, led by Avis Budget.
• Enhancing several existing airline messages to include EMD-related data to support the distribution of optional products and services, led by HP.

Several segment-independent projects are also underway in the architecture work group, including:

• Reliable Messaging Guidelines led by IBM
• Creating an OpenTravel Data Dictionary
• Namespace Usage in OpenTravel Schemas led by Marriott International

Click Here for a Link to Project Descriptions

OpenTravelNewProjects2010BFinal.doc (82.50 KB)

Upcoming OpenTravel Activities

OpenTravel’s annual Advisory Forum will be held April 26-28, 2010 at the Marriott Seattle Waterfront in Seattle, Washington.  Topics range from Cloud Computing in the New Decade to The Impact of Structured Data on Search Results to ongoing discussions of the value and role of standards in the travel industry – click here for the full agenda.

About the OpenTravel Alliance

The OpenTravel Alliance is passionate about solving the problems inherent with connecting multiple systems within the complex travel distribution arena.

OpenTravel’s mission is to engineer specifications that make data transmission flow smoothly throughout travel, tourism and hospitality. OpenTravel creates, expands and drives adoption of open universal data specifications, including but not limited to the use of XML, for the electronic exchange of business information among all sectors of the travel industry.

With a diversified membership representing influential names in all sectors of the travel industry, OpenTravel is comprised of representatives from airlines, car rental firms, hotels, cruise lines, leisure suppliers, service providers, tour operators, travel agencies, and trade associations. Thousands of message structures are in use, carrying tens of millions of messages between travel trading partners every day.  For more information, visit www.opentravel.org.