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Viewdata Faces Web Assassins
30 July 2001

British Airways has announced that from the beginning of October it will switch off its BA Link viewdata system in favour of its new Internet-based trade booking system. Another drawing pin attempting to be a nail in the coffin of viewdata. Yet viewdata continues to survive because it is straightforward to use and provides access to so many travel reservation systems. Can it really last for much longer though?

Telewest which operates the Imminus travel network, recently acquired Rapid Travel Solutions. Some of this technology company's latest work was for Dreamticket, the recently closed online travel agency. Its technology allowed Dreamticket to access tour operators' legacy systems at the back-end, fronting them with a slick Internet Web site. If Rapid could do a similar job for Telewest, this might be the key to moving the industry on.

At the moment, trailblazers such as ABC Holiday Extras, Holiday Autos, Gold Medal and others are offering agents access to their booking systems via the Web. In order to make use of these systems, agents simply need access to the Internet.

Tour operators and other travel principals need to link their reservation system servers to the Internet for direct sell to the public, so they can offer agents access without any further connectivity costs. Now, if many tour operator booking systems were on the Web, agents with Internet access would have no need for viewdata or its replacement. There would be no role for the travel networks and their efforts to re-invent themselves as travel-trade Extranets would be superfluous. However, life is not that simple. Firstly, as long as there are tour operators offering viewdata booking services that agents still want to access, then there is a need for the travel networks to provide access.

Secondly, the networks are well aware of their need to add value to survive. Simply offering connectivity, as in the old days of viewdata, is no longer enough. The networks have already launched their Extranet portals, Telewest/Imminus' Endeavour, X-TANT's Traveleye and the Energis Travel Portal, all with a number of useful value added features.

However, agents need to stay one step ahead of the public. They need booking tools that are more sophisticated than anything that is publicly available. So, expect these portals to become increasingly slick over the coming months with reservations distribution technology that is so easy to use and so highly functional that agents will find it irresistible. For instance, perhaps an airline GDS-style system for leisure travel? Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan offer neutral airline bookings systems that provide real-time availability across hundreds of airlines.

So perhaps we could have a similarly functional leisure travel system. Key-in "Majorca, 2 adults, 2 children, 15 August for two weeks" and the system would immediately interrogate availability for every single tour operator offering Majorca. Sounds good, doesn't it? It would be an agent's dream, but it is technically fraught and, indeed, there may be tour operators who balk at having their pricing and availability displayed neutrally alongside their competitors.

Maybe Telewest has acquired Rapid Travel Solutions precisely to develop just such a system. If so, this would really nail the lid on viewdata. If not, then there may be a few more years left in the old beastie yet. We'll just have to wait and see.

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