Johannesburg, 04 Sep 2003
Travel agents rely increasingly on the Internet to make reservations and check availability for anything from air travel and car rental to hotel bookings or cruise liners. The most popular way of doing this is through Galileo`s FocalPointNet. Galileo has now teamed up with Tiscali in order to offer a single solution for travel agents.
"It`s really about lowering costs while making travel management companies more competitive," says Solly Patel, Chief Executive of Galileo Southern Africa.
Galileo is the leading provider of electronic global distribution services for the travel industry in southern Africa. It provides travel agencies at over 1 100 locations with the ability to access schedule and fare information, make reservations and issue tickets for more than 519 airlines. Similarly, reservations can be made for over 45 021 hotels, 38 car hire companies and 350 tour and cruise operators. Galileo`s data centre is one of the world`s largest commercial data processing complexes.
Galileo is working with communications company, Tiscali, to take care of the Internet service component for their clients. Forecasts predict up to 2000 South African travel agents and tour operators will be making online travel bookings with Galileo and Tiscali.
Says Larry Paslovsky, general manager at Tiscali: "Galileo is by far the most widely used electronic travel reservations system in SA. The company will offer their agents Internet connectivity through Tiscali."
Connections come in the form of dial-up, ISDN, ADSL or leased lines which are securely routed to Galileo`s central system in Denver, Colorado, in the US.
"We will also offer the support component of the connectivity, so the agents will have a share-call number to dial in order to receive support," says Paslovsky.
He says recent research has shown that there is a growing trend for travel agents to be mobile and more independent, however, they still need access to the booking network.
Apart from telephonic technical support and connectivity, Tiscali will offer a suite of other value-added services to travel agents. An example of this would be World Back-up, as there is a need to ensure the backup and security of the reservations data.
"We have taken the Internet burden away from Galileo. Agents now have direct access to our proven technology and world-class service," says Paslovsky.
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