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Tech in travel

As an increasing number of travelers take the online route, IT has hit the right note for OTAs and travel companies. By Neeraj Gandhi

Technology has changed the face of almost every industry possible. From banking to manufacturing, insurance to retail, every industry has successfully deployed IT and reaped the benefits thereof. Among all these verticals, the travel industry stands out for the manner in which IT has done wonders not only in the manner in which people travel but also the way in which tours and trips are being organized. From tickets to hotel booking to information, everything is just a click away.

Travel companies and Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are leveraging IT easing the entire travel process not only for the passengers but also for themselves. Every time you log onto a travel Web site (OTAs), the request gets routed to the Web-enabled Global Distribution System, which in turn sources the information from the airline, so on and so forth. Every process and sub process is automated or is on the verge of being automated. It will not be long before technology percolates to all levels of the travel industry.

That said, what looks simple on paper, is not so in real life. The slightest slip anywhere in this channel can spell discomfort for the passenger and trouble for an airline. For instance, in December 2006, Kingfisher Airline was duped of approximately Rs 17 crores. It was said that a group of persons booked tickets online using cards numbers and in turn sold them at a discount.

Following such incidents, the travel companies and the OTAs have become extra cautious and they have put checks and deployed necessary solutions in place to ensure security. It’s not just security, their precautions extend to a gamut of software and applications.

“A customized version of Microsoft Dynamics Navision (running on Windows Server machines) serves our mid-office and back-office needs giving us functionality for lead tracking and conversion, airline ticket issuance and accounting,” said Chetan Uberoy, CTO, MakeMyTrip.com

“Our Web site infrastructure comprises of Radware load balancers, Cisco Firewall and Linux blade servers running open source software like the MySQL database, Apache Web Server and Tomcat application server,” he added.

Manish Amin, Co founder, Yatra.com, added, “We are running our Web site on Open Source applications and the main business logic runs on Java. In the call center, we have developed our own applications using some open source and Microsoft applications. Our Web infrastructure consists of firewalls, load balancers, data storage and HP blades for our Web application and database servers.”

Open source software is very popular amongst OTAs for the simple reason that it has a large community that supports users and offers flexibility. The software is tweaked to address the particular needs of a travel company. “We are primarily a Java shop and try to take advantage of as many proven open-source applications and tools as we can,” said Himanshu Singh, MD Travelocity.co.in.

In contrast, to meet the IT requirements, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. uses Microsoft Office automation, BI, and an in house WebSphere /Java based application. In terms of hardware, the company has deployed an IBM P5 server for its database and Intel-based IBM and HP (Quad 2 and Quad 4 CPUs) servers for its applications.

IT requirements & challenges

Deploying applications does not solve the IT puzzle in these organizations. As more and more travelers start taking the online route, the set of challenges and requirements keeps growing for them. The bigger problem here is that there are not many solutions available that are complete, and can address their needs.

“We constantly look for new products and services that may reduce our turnaround times on traditional business processes. But no solution has been able to cater 100% of our requirements. This leads to a mix-n-match of technologies. I believe this wish of ours can never be fulfilled by one provider,” said Amin.

In the normal course of things, these organizations work by themselves to understand the requirements and goals of a particular product to come up with the best possible solution. Many a times, the solution is designed in house. Some even prefer to work with partners who have experience in implementing and tailoring solutions to their needs.

“Today’s travel businesses demand access to fast, open technology supported by specialist expertise and experience. These solutions should be scalable, reliable and adaptive to the changing business needs,” opined Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group & Managing Director, Amadeus India.

As for challenges, these are varied and persistent as in any other organization depending heavily on IT. Then there are issues that are specific to these organizations. Security of information, constant change, and integration with different backend systems are a few of them. In addition, they also have to ensure the authenticity of the person during the ticket sale process.

“Data security has become a major challenge these days. We have to deal with data lying in laptops, shared folders and sometimes even on USB drives. We have strict controls on the use of local drives and removable drives. Data retention and archival is another,” said Amin.

“In a dynamic and high growth business environment like ours, managing change is the biggest challenge. For this reason, flexibility, scalability and ease of integration are the most important criteria for our choice of IT systems. In spite of making good choices and planning, we face the unexpected almost on a daily basis, whether it’s the unavailability of a partner’s service which our business relies on or a change in the business landscape which requires us to react quickly,” said Uberoy.

With the advent of the Internet, travel sites have exposed the travelers today to a plethora of holiday and business packages to various destinations. This implies greater options and more bargaining power in the hands of the traveler. This has lead to the issue of meeting the customer demands. “Due to high competition in the travel industry, customers are asking for lots of customization in their travel itineraries which sometimes becomes difficult to put in the system,” said Sohrab Dawe, AVP – Information Technology, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd.

To counter these issues and handle these precarious situations, travel organizations are taking different tacks. For instance, MakeMyTrip has a 24X7 monitoring team which monitors the health of various systems used in its IT infrastructure. Yatra on the other hand has deployed an encrypted shared storage for everyone to store files on which is backed up daily.

“The online industry in India is at a nascent stage. India has a relatively low PC penetration and B to C e-commerce has not really taken off. Therefore, the online travel industry is yet to realize its full potential in India,” added Bhatia.

Roadmap

Technology has helped OTAs and travel companies manage their business processes with ease. It has automated their back end processes, helped build state of the art infrastructure, ensured customer satisfaction and much more. There’s no doubt, that these organizations are gung ho about future IT deployments. Yatra for instance has allocated 5% of its budget for IT projects.

Going ahead, these organizations are looking at complex applications to integrate processes. “We are looking for an effective CRM/Business Intelligence solution which would seamlessly integrate with our mid office and Web site databases. We are also looking to expand our internal and Web site infrastructure to handle higher traffic and usage forecasted for the next year,” said Uberoy.

Thomas Cook on the other hand is looking at exploring different forms of communication, e.g. mobile communication, and building a WAP enabled Web site.

Singh of Travelocity said, “We are always looking at various technologies to streamline our business processes, from installing VOIP, to introducing secure wireless networks to our offices.”

As for Yatra, it is looking for automation of back office operations such as order fulfillment, logistics and accounting. “This year, our prime focus is on automation, and improving call center processes. We are looking at some new technology, which we will be implemented in the second quarter of 2008,” said Amin.

neeraj.gandhi@expressindia.com