Online travel site eTravel has launched its revamped Web site. The site, www.etravel.co.za, makes use of a newly released XML interface to the Galileo Reservation System. The site connects real-time to Galileo International in Denver, Colorado. Galileo is a global distribution system for the international travel industry.
"eTravel`s new online travel site developed entirely in SA allows you to search out and book discounted and published airfares. Only flights that have seats available will show, avoiding that very annoying problem of being told, after you have entered information, `Sorry no seats available`," says Bob Williams, CEO, eTravel.
"We wanted to offer transactions that actually did something for the consumer. The transaction that shows available flights according to price was probably the most complicated transaction I have ever seen, but it is unbelievably powerful. That transaction can return XML strings of up to 80 pages long in under 60 seconds," says Riaan van Schoor, business manager of the developers of the eTravel site.
The site also enables eTravel staff to push the content of a reservation to the consumer, where the consumer can then visit the site and retrieve their reservation in real-time. A unique feature, says eTravel, is that it is not necessary to provide credit card details when making a reservation.
"The client is going to be contacted by eTravel anyway to confirm payment and travel choices, and at the time an appropriate method of payment can be arranged, including credit card. In this way, we can accommodate customers not comfortable in supplying credit card details online. The site also offers payment via bluebean.com, again prepared by eTravel staff and pushed to the bluebean user," explains Williams.
eTravel says a key differentiation of the site is the use of the latest generation application program interface (API) from Galileo, released six months ago. eTravel`s site developers say they were the only company in Africa to receive Beta use of the API.
The site is hosted on Windows 2000 using IIS 5 and SQL 2000. Most of the transactions that communicate with Galileo are wrapped in COM objects, and specialised hosting is provided by Atraxis at Johannesburg International Airport.
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