Innovation Award

Voice over Internet Protocol/VoCall Interface

VoIP provides the user with the ability to make telephone calls via an internet connection.

Benefits include reducing communication and infrastructure costs for Homeworking agencies, Call centres, Multiples, Miniples and the independent high street Travel Agent.

Calls are routed over existing data networks to avoid the need for separate voice and data networks. More than one telephone call can be transmitted over a single broadband connection thus reducing the need to add extra lines at additional expense.

The system provides the user with improved functionality and management of calls within their business.

The VoCall management interface developed by Vertical Group provides end-user access to a management interface where they can change call routing options, view call logs and listen to any call recordings.

Recordings are converted into a standard mp3 format to reduce storage size and increase compatibility with end user media players.

Access to the Vertical Group VoIP/VoCall system is provided by use of ADSL circuits and compatible ADSL routers with built in analogue telephone adapters. The circuit terminates directly into a secure data centre onto a private MPLS VPN.

VoIP and VoCall is currently being successfully used by Future Travel (Homeworking) – part of the Co-operative Travel Trading Group and being implemented widely across the Vertical Group customer network.

192business supply global identity verification solutions to the travel market.  By aggregating databases such as Electoral Roll, Credit Reference, fraud screening and shared fraud alert data, 192business’ customers have accurate identity information at their fingertips.  This helps to significantly reduce their costly chargebacks and fraud rates saving their business time and effort and increasing their bottom lines.  192business believe in continually evolving their product by adding new global databases and providing alternative identity checking where traditional databases are not available.  Our customers find our solutions easily to integrate or use simply as part of their back office tools.

Introduction

Micros Travel has developed a unique and revolutionary travel procurement system due for Launch at the Travel Technology Show for 2010.

SABSCorporate takes online travel booking to the next level. The systems unique design consolidates all preferred GDS, rail, hotel and ground transportation providers into one simple to use, web based, self-booking tool.

In order to give the end user all of the information required to make the most cost-effective reservation, the unique “Holistic Costing” facility calculates:

Fares + Fees + Applicable Rebates + CO2 + Man Hour Cost = Most cost effective reservation

 SABSCorporate’s Intelligent Packaging Facility then searches all suppliers and dynamically packages together the most cost effective Flight or Train, Hotel and Taxi whilst taking into consideration corporate policy, carbon cost, man-hour cost and corporate governance.

Coupled with Micros Travel’s process and ticket automation systems, SABSCorporate truly can deliver a touchless booking-to-fulfilment process for the TMC.

Customer Testimonial

Research proves that to compare a simple journey (train vs. flight) from London to Manchester, with a hotel and taxi service took an average of 26 minutes. A single SABSCorporate search returned all relevant results in less than one minute, with the booking being completed from an intelligent package with in 4 minutes.

“Many people claim leading edge technology in their sales patter, often the words are a cliché and the reality is somewhat different. The team at Micros have truly delivered a product that is not only leading edge but is one that will turn heads in the commercial travel market.” Ian Wotton, Redfern Travel.

Cornerstone's recent innovation, Travets (tm), is the next step in the evolution of travel information management.

The primary challenge facing those who procure travel (and those who sell to
them) is knowing what actions to take with the data they have. More reports, 'better' reports or one-size-fits-all reports are not the answer. Putting travel information into context is.
 
The customized Travets desktop includes rotating/exploding pie charts, interactive maps and animated graphs that give new meaning to what may be buried in mounds of canned reports. Travets provide a visual window into contract performance, policy abuses and data integrity. And more.

The new enhancement will see rail and air content offered side by side. Customers will now have the choice to compare and book regular air carriers with train operators such as Thalys, Eurostar, ICE, TGV and many more.

CO2 emissions and the environment matter to many travelers so offering a comparable alternative to air travel in the form of rail gives customers an opportunity to reduce their ‘Carbon footprint’.

Ypsilon’s flight booking engine is in a state of continual technological and content enhancement. With the ability to incorporate hotel content, car hire, transfers and insurance as well as multi GDS aggregation the cutting-edge development of rail content takes Ypsilon a further major step towards the ultimate multi source/multi content solution.

AX Travel goes to market as the full scale integrated IT solution for the travel industry. Based on Microsoft Dynamics AX we have developed all the travel specific functionalities needed to run a state of the art travel agency. Based on the newest technology AX Travel is able to gather all data one place for proactive use towards customers and suppliers. By streamlining and automating the daily working routines AX Travel will help reduce cost significant and at the same time enhance the lifecycles of new and existing customers meaning better bottom line at the end of the day!

Innovation in Reservations

At a time when operational efficiency is more important than ever for travel companies, Dolphin Dynamics has introduced a major usability enhancement designed to help customers reduce the keystrokes required to confirm multi-product, multi-sector cost quotes by up to 70%.

Dolphin Cost Quote Revalidation
What is it?
Cost Quote Revalidation is a new Dolphin feature which enables stored customer cost quotes to be automatically converted to valid, re-priced and confirmed bookings via a single mouse click. Cost quotes incorporating a variety of suppliers including GDS-sourced and low-cost airlines, accommodation, car and transfer suppliers – as well as directly negotiated contracts, can be efficiently generated and saved. With markups automatically applied where relevant and high quality documentation distributed via print or email.

Using Dolphin’s Cost Quote Revalidation feature, users can automatically retrieve and convert even the most complex quote to a booking with minimal user input. As part of this process Dolphin automatically checks real time availability and current prices for all quoted suppliers resulting in overall keystroke savings of up to 70% for users completing multi-product bookings.

How does it help?
This new Dolphin feature helps customers to increase their quote to booking conversion ratios. This starts by providing a streamlined process that encourages users to save all quotes because they know they can be speedily converted.

Once saved, Dolphin really goes to work - generating automatic follow-up reminders to staff for any outstanding quotes and providing the marketing team with the capability to analyse quote to booking ratios in order to refine their product, pricing and marketing communications. Cost Quote Revalidation saves them time, improves accuracy and enhances the service they
provide to customers by enabling them to instantly confirm travel quotations.

Why is it different?
Cost Quote Revalidation is uniquely available for use with any travel product regardless of data source (i.e. contracted products and external travel suppliers). It is also fully integrated with the Dolphin Inbox workflow management system to provide customers with a complete quote management solution designed to help them issue, store, follow-up and confirm customer quotes
quickly, accurately and cost-effectively.

Customer Testimonial
“As a tailor-made operator issuing quotes and itinerary proposals is a key part of the service we provide to customers. Dolphin’s cost quote revalidation function is therefore a huge time-saver for my staff and has made a significant contribution towards helping us improve our service to customers. We’re now issuing more quotes and achieving higher conversion rates – activities for
us which have resulted in a direct positive impact on our bottom line.

David Alix Barker, Managing Director, Travelbeam

Cauwill’s product, PinPoints, solves the problem of describing a location and any content relevant to that location. It’s a web service for any business that has a need to describe a location or destination for its customers. PinPoints provide the tools to easily create, store, manage and distribute location descriptions. An end customer may access the PinPoint via social networks, email or sms. The PinPoint makes the best use of the technology available, detecting and integrating with whatever mapping software is available whether that is mobile or desktop.

Case Study

The online travel sector has been identified by Cauwill as a sector where the PinPoints technology adds significant value. In 2009, Cauwill won the InterTradeIreand Best Emerging Company business competition with this proposal. In 2010 the technology was promoted by the Nokia Ovi stand at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

An online travel agent has a need to describe a location every time something (hotel, car, tour, etc.) is booked. With the PinPoints technology this pain is reduced to a seemingly simple but actually very smart URL. A PinPoint looks like: http://pinpoints.at/TravelTechnologyEurope. When clicked, it adapts to the available technology making the best use of it. It works as expected on the desktop but its true innovation is seen when clicked on a Smartphone. It displays the destination on the phones mapping software: Nokia, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. If no mapping software is available, the service degrades gracefully by displaying a static map. The PinPoints technology includes a delivery platform so that the PinPoint may be delivered over SMS directly to the customers handset when they need it. No registration or application download is needed on the phone – it’s one click navigation.

Case Study
IcelandAir developed a targeted email campaign to boost customer enagement, increase customer satisfaction and drive increased sales throughout Europe and North America.  Using ExactTarget’s international email technology, the airline automatically builds and sends emails in the preferred language of its customers including German, Dutch, English, Icelandic, French, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.  The campaign includes:

Pre-flight
- Sent automatically one week before flight.
- ExactTarget’s Dynamic Content personalises emails
- Includes check-in, onboard services and destination content
Post-flight
- Automatically sends a post-flight thank you email
Customer Newsletter
- Sent to customers in 10 countries
- Includes top offers and discounts

Results
IcelandAir increased its Netclub conversion rate from 0.34% to 0.97% and posted increased newsletter results including:
- 200,000 visits over a 9 week period
- 5.6 pages viewed per visit
- 7 minutes and 33 seconds spent online
- 77% repeat visitors

Looking to the future
Icelandair plans to further boost email personalization by integrating data from its Web analytics provider, (Google Analytics) into ExactTarget to build automated email campaigns based on customers’ Icelandair.com browsing habits.  The company also plans to integrate its existing social media strategy into its email efforts using ExactTarget’s Social Forward technology to enable customers to share email content with up to 50 social network sites including Twitter and Facebook.

Katrin Erna Gunnarsdottir, Web marketing, project manager at Icelandair says, “Email provides Icelandair an unparalleled channel to build loyalty with our guests and create a buzz around our products that drive repeat purchases. ExactTarget provides us a flexible platform to power all of our communications – both external guest communications and internal communications to agents.”

Peter McCormick, co-founder and general manager of ExactTarget says, “The gains Icelandair has made are exemplary of an international marketer who is using technology to build customer loyalty and drive sales in an exceedingly tight market.”