It’s gratifying, then, when an independent organization recognizes the work we do. InformationWeek magazine recently ranked Travelport No. 11 on its InformationWeek 500 for our innovative use of information technology. This is a prestigious list because it doesn’t just look at what companies spend on information technology - it looks at how innovative they are in using IT to serve customers and grow their businesses. (You can see the 2009 rankings by clicking here.) I’m proud to say that Travelport had the only GDS ranked in the Top 250.

Our high ranking is largely the result of the complex and highly successful project to consolidate our Denver data center operations into our Atlanta facility. The switchover required months of planning and testing to make sure we made the migration cleanly and without disrupting service important to our customers and partners.

Our team used new and innovative technologies to migrate over one petabyte (that’s 1,000,000 gigabytes) of critical data. During the migration, data was moved data from three different mainframe environments and 600 servers, more than 60,000 network route changes were made, and 45 million travel reservations were shifted to Atlanta with minimal service interruption.

Results of the migration have exceeded expectations. Customers report a 50% improvement in response time for key applications. For Travelport, the migration significantly improved our technical infrastructure, provided major cost savings, improved reliability of global operations and reduced the physical data center footprint in support of our Green Initiative.

At the end of the day, though, Travelport IT innovation is focused on one overarching goal: to create exceptional travel experiences for our customers. That’s what we’re in business for, and we’ll continue to invest in technology that helps us deliver on that goal.

In reading articles about the distribution of travel services, it’s not uncommon to come across the phrase “traditional GDS.” In a 21^st Century context, “traditional” suggests the old way of doing things – more Betamax than Blu-ray. Although I don’t think this is actually true of the modern GDS and the advanced technology that drives our business, it’s a reminder that the future of our industry depends on more than the scale and presence the GDSs have today. We have to evolve to meet the growing and changing needs of our customers, and this means changing some of the ways we have traditionally done business.

The travel industry today is no different than any other industry; it is driven by an explosion of information, new and more flexible technologies, and an almost insatiable demand from companies and consumers alike for rich and varied content, presented in a way that enables them to make an informed travel choice. This is driving significant change for our suppliers and customers, and GDS providers need to be equally if not more fleet of foot in anticipating their needs, delivering services ahead of the curve and doing so in an open environment.

The most immediate technology challenge is the aging “green screen” technology used by our travel agency client base – and the historic lack of investment in a true alternative. While most GDS companies have added a “point and click” user interface for their products, it amounts to little more than a graphical skin on top of a cryptic entry workflow process. It’s not enough to accommodate a new world of unbundled content, merchandising, cross-selling and upselling – not just for airlines but for all content suppliers.

We need a far more radical approach – one that enables travel agencies to compare and contrast all the product offerings while incorporating this new content into their workflow and management processes. One that enables corporations to determine which unbundled products are permissible expenses and, if they are, insure they are offered through their chosen corporate booking tool.

In fact, I believe we’ve reached something of an inflection point where we finally have the catalyst we need to get the GDSs and their users off the green screens once and for all. We can now begin to envision the significant enhancement of GDS navigation, the unprecedented broadening of content available to be sold through a GDS, and a revolution in the dialogue between travel product suppliers, travel product retailers and the GDS as to how travel is sold.

To be sure, radical change will require significant new investment by the GDSs and others, but the result will be a true, service-oriented environment. It can and will be achieved by using state of the art browser and display capabilities – integrating data and information sourced through APIs alongside the more traditional host-to-host and peer connectivity the GDSs have relied on for so long. (It will also require a set of industry standards to tie all these systems and connections together, a subject I’ll address in a forthcoming blog.)

Travelport has already pioneered many of these concepts through our work with Air Canada, which was one of the first airlines in North America to embrace unbundling as a new way of selling their product. Traditional GDS methods would not allow us to blend together the way Air Canada sells its branded product with their a la carte menu of additional services (seat assignments, meal vouchers, etc.). We added an API connection into their application in which all the bundled and unbundled intelligence is stored. There was no way we could meaningfully display this content alongside other carrier options on a green screen. Just last month we rolled out Travelport Agencia, which incorporates all of this new technology, to travel agencies throughout Canada.

This is just the beginning. To accommodate the way each supplier wants to sell and promote their product now and in the future, GDSs and other interested stakeholders have to develop an entirely new means of aggregating and displaying content into travel agency desktops and corporate self-booking tools. We also need to provide one-stop API access to multiple OTAs and other online intermediaries.

The good news is that this is actually well advanced and in production. We have the means to connect content from multiple sources, mix and match, enable comparison shopping across different content sources and handle different methods of payment.

I’m optimistic that the industry will see significant further investment as well as advances in the user experience for both travel agencies and corporate travel managers. But radical change will require more than the effort of individual GDSs. It will also require a travel industry that is willing to embrace change and new ways of working to take full advantage of this tremendous opportunity.

I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t room for improvement in the GDS model, particularly in how we provide and present content to travel agents, corporate travel managers and other users and I’ll address some of these improvements in upcoming blogs.

Most consumers do not consider that they will receive an unbiased selection of all the travel options available when they go to a web site which is branded to a particular supplier.  And they would be right.  There was a tendency some time ago for consumers to believe that the only place they would see a travel supplier’s lowest price was on the branded web site of that supplier.  However, through what are known as “full content deals”, the GDS industry has largely contracted with the vast majority of airlines and indeed hotel chains to ensure that all publicly available fares, seats or rooms are shown through the channels using the GDS. These channels include all of the major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) as well as the high street leisure agencies and business travel management companies.

The recent decision in the USA of all the major OTAs to largely remove the booking fees they once charged to consumers now means that there is no need whatsoever for a consumer to shop for choice of carrier and itinerary at an OTA and then go to the supplier.com web site to book the same price or itinerary in order to save the OTA booking fee.  Similarly in the business travel world, the desire of low cost carriers to capture more corporate business has resulted in increasing numbers and “big names” such as EasyJet in Europe and Southwest and JetBlue in the USA embracing participation in the GDS because the GDSs are the main content aggregation, singular booking process, on-line booking tool and travel workflow automation providers to both corporate and leisure travel providers.

Travel meta search companies, which screen scrape the web sites of assorted travel providers to provide on-line consumers with travel options, generally offer a more limited range of options to that of sites powered by GDSs. It is for this reason that several meta search sites have actually entered into agreements with Travelport and pay for access to and use of our data in response to consumer queries on fares and seat availability.  Furthermore, the majority of bookings which emanate from travel meta search go to Online Travel Agencies which are of course largely reliant on the GDSs for their aggregated content, fares and booking capabilities.

It is maybe not the most glamorous thing in the world to be the plumbing behind the global travel industry but for that part of the consumer led market which demands choice and wants to be able to see and access consistent travel content through multiple channels – on-line, off-line, mobile, policy managed, non managed – then this is the role the GDSs play.

Such “plumbing” requires infrastructure and investment – in the case of Travelport a state of the art data centre complex which processes more than 31 billion transactions per month and handles 65 million travel searches per day.  A fares database which holds over 4 billion prices and an almost infinite range of price combinations enabling consumers ultimately to get a price to journey from and to virtually any point on the planet which has a commercial air service and to stay in any one of over 92,000 hotel properties along the way.

The challenge for GDS providers – just as it is for virtually every other business – is to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.  This means processing and presenting data in different ways, adding the ability to pay for a seat assignment, a checked bag or a spa treatement at the hotel as well reserve the room as we continue to evolve to meet the changing needs and expectations of our customers and suppliers.  This requires investment in applications and infrastructure.

However, the goal at Travelport remains the same: to enable our customers and suppliers to provide informed travel choice on a global platform.

It’s certainly true here at Travelport.  In the midst of a global downturn in travel, we’re looking at both the internal challenge (how to improve our own efficiency) and the external challenges (how to help our customers operate more efficiently as well as retain and attract customers).

Among other things, we’re in the final stages of consolidating our two data centers into a single data center.  This will enable us to save money, increase energy efficiency and provide higher service levels for our customers.  That’s important in any economic environment, but it’s especially important right now.

Technology plays an essential role in times like these.  The airline industry is a good example.  With the huge jumps in fuel costs and lower demand, airlines are very focused on revenue.  But every year, they lose millions of dollars in revenue because of incorrectly priced tickets.

To help solve this problem, Travelport introduced the first pre-ticketing fare audit tool built to stop revenue leakage.  Called Fare Verified, it provides airlines with the real time data and options they need to prevent the issuance of incorrectly priced tickets by airline employees.

Technology is also helping companies in all industries deal with the issue of sustainability, especially at a time of volatile oil prices and growing concerns over greenhouse gas emissions.

Royal Caribbean International, for example, is investing more than $100 million in state-of-the-art wastewater purification technology to reduce the impact of its cruise ships on the environment.   Boeing is working with global airlines and engine manufacturers on a variety of alternative fuel technologies, including biofuels, solar cells and fuel cells.   And we’re offering an emissions reporting tool (the Travelport Carbon Tracker) that helps customers make more informed and sustainable travel choices.

Tough times also increase demand for automation.  This is an important issue for travel agencies, which are looking for ways to deliver more services at a lower cost.  With Travelport ViewTrip, for example, travelers get 24×7 access to an electronic, Web-based itinerary and other online tools.  Travel agencies save money, and travelers benefit from more flexible, on-demand services.

Every company is feeling the strain of the global economic slowdown.  But I’ve learned during my career that the best companies are often forged in the fires of adversity.  They use technology and every other tool available to build businesses that can succeed in good times or bad.  That’s the challenge for all of us today.

No more so than in travel, it appears. Travellerspoint, Travelmole, Travelistic, Trip Tie; Trip Up; 43 Places, Trip Hub, Where are you now (WAYN), Trip Connect, Dopplr, TripIt, Driftr. Add your own favourite, the list isn’t exhaustive. And this is before the hotels and holidays rating services being used by online travel agents and some travel meta-search engines.

TripAdvisor is owned by Expedia, for example, and Trip Up was acquired in July 2007 by SideStep. So what is it about these sites that appeals so much that these serious businesses are willing to spend serious money?

My first response to Web 2.0 functionality is (typically) one of cynicism. The cynic in me says that users are either people with too much time on their hands; or are not users at all, but were arm-twisted into signing up to something that then gains little or fleeting participation from them. There’s also the suspicion that the value of many social networking sites is disproportionately borne by the readers of material, rather than the writers of it. For instance if I give a poor rating for a lousy business hotel, I get little more than a momentary diminution of stress – while the reader of my rant avoids the hotel in question, a much larger gain.

And, the sceptic in me smirks and nudges, the real winner from the free content is of course the host website. While not all written contributions are masterpieces, all true-life experiences evoke an attraction of their own. While some seem on occasion to be written by hotel marketing men and women, others are genuinely passionate about their brief vacation in Bucharest or Budapest, Sofia, Bratislava or Henley-on-Thames, there for the beer, the odd statue, the old buildings, the new dust, the inevitable pollution; the water, the regatta and the wide flowery hats. This is content that you can’t otherwise buy; not even if you’re the BBC.

And this kind of content is important. In October 2006 Forrester’s Henry Harteveldt said Social Computing must (his emphasis) play “some role in your online strategy, even if all you do is monitor what travelers say about your brands on third-party forums.” Quoting its own US NACTAS online surveys Forrester said nearly one-third of US online leisure travellers who researched leisure travel online said they did so reading user-written reviews, and many trusted them more than professionally-written reviews. Nearly one-in-ten researchers used traveller community or review sites, ten times the percentage just a year before.

A year later, though, Mr Harteveldt was writing a few words of caution. He said that Bookers, Forrester’s category for people who both researched and booked online, was no longer growing. Sideliners, travellers who had access to the internet but didn’t use it for planning or buying, had risen by 50%. And Lookers, who used the web for trip research but bought offline, were using the web to research fewer trips. At the same time as the web was apparently becoming less engaging, the value online bookings generated was increasing, because online travellers spent more. Allow me to borrow Forrester’s erudite term: “Uh-oh”. This kind of gearing is potentially bad news, given the downturn the US is experiencing. The implication? A reduction in spending could crash the online market like a bag of old pans.

Websites see web 2.0 as a way of re-engaging the customer. But used simply as a business tool social networking risks being seen as cheap and ‘sticky’ and never taking off on a particular site. Whether an individual site is praiseworthy or pants is judged by public acclaim and critical mass. Knowing this, some are borrowing the ‘rent-a-crowd’ concept: using content from another rating service as a ‘seed’ to get the ball rolling. Get enough people in a line outside a new nightclub, the theory says, real crowds start to form, fooled the place is jumpin’.

My view is that only social networking sites that are truly addicted to people will ultimately survive and prosper. Rent-a-crowd might work, once or twice, but if the place is actually a bit grotty and the drinks are expensive you just don’t go back.