That was the core recommendation handed out to industry executives attending Thammasat University’s Innovation in Travel and Tourism seminar, last week.

The university’s College of Innovation visiting professor,Alexander Rayner, told travel agencies that they needed to gain competitive edge particularly through the adoption of social media and mobile phone.

“Internet applications are quite complicated and not as easy anymore to grasp and employ…. We are moving from a traditional mode to a new digital environment that will see people turning to social media before make a decision about travel.”

He warned agents that they needed to engage digital marketing or “mobile service” that he called ‘mTourism’.

“It involves selling travel directly through smartphones, which is more independent than computers,” he indicated.

Smartphone users in 2010 increased by 72.10% to 297 million people compared to 172 million users in 2009 and this is now an opportunity to expand our business channels,” Mr Rayner said.

Much of what he said was common knowledge to travel agents attending the event. They all use smartphones, but they probably needed more information on how to adopt smartphone technology to their tour inventory and what to look for from solution suppliers.

According to the US-based Sabre,  an internal survey showed 91% of airlines are employing mobile services for passengers and by 2014 Sabre estimated that 85% of ticket sales would be through mobile phones. At the same time 68% of passengers are expected to use self-service check-in, while 32% will still go through agent check-in.

The Amadeus Hotel Optimisation Package covers two areas:

• Profit optimisation – to help large travel agencies and TMCs save time and have more control over global hotel programmes;

• Content Optimisation – converting Amadeus into a one-stop-shop for hotel content.

“In Asia Pacific, we are seeing steady growth in the corporate travel market, which will be a key business driver in 2012. Our goal is to offer our customers a single view across multiple hotel channels and address the needs of the price sensitive traveller with more options in all price ranges,” said Amadeus Asia Pacific, head of hotel distribution, Kartikeya Tripathi.

“The Amadeus Hotel Optimisation Package empowers our customers to tackle the complex and fragmented markets in Asia Pacific both efficiently and profitably,” she added.

Features include:

» Amadeus Hotel Dynamic Saver, a multi-GDS Business Intelligence solution to help both large travel agencies and corporate travel managers maintain high savings standards and ensure hotel contract compliance. Key capabilities include Last Room Availability, identification of rate squatters and automatic future comparison of negotiated vs. public rates to ensure buyers get the best deal at all times;

» Integration of hotel content: as the quickest path to integrating the ‘long tail’ of content, Amadeus has a strong pipeline of hotel aggregators, which are being integrated across all its travel agency point-of-sale solutions. First to be integrated, in 2011, were Destinations of the World and Transhotel, representing a total inventory of over 50,000 hotels;

» Amadeus LinkHotel, a customised, fast-track service that enables quick seamless integration of specific hotels that are requested by travel agencies and their corporate customers but are currently not bookable on the GDS (for instance, hotels close to remote manufacturing sites which typically would not show on these systems). Through this service Amadeus already connects over six thousand hotels to the GDS universe for real-time reservations;

» Additional components within the package include a powerful tool to drive contract compliance by driving smarter booking behaviour at the point of sale.

More information about the full suite of solutions can be found here: http://www.amadeus.com/hoteldistribution/ahwp/overview/package-overview .

TravelDNA has been a viral hit during an invitation-only test period and has already caught the eyes of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

“We are trying to be the Amazon.com for travel; building the perfect itinerary for every user in less than a second,” Taneja said while showing TravelDNA to reporters gathered for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

She described the service as a computerised version of “a travel agent who knew you perfectly; had expertise of anywhere in the world; was open 24-seven and was free.”

TravelDNA uses algorithms and machine learning to navigate the oceans of data about flights, hotels, restaurants, attractions, and more from a cornucopia of partners such as Expedia, and Lonely Planet, Michelin, and Frommer’s guides.

“Because we do this mathematically, we can endlessly match people to places and objects to find the best results,” Taneja said.

“No human could put that level of effort into it,” she continued. “Essentially, we are saying who are you, what do you like and what do you want?”

TravelDNA will cover 20 destination cities when the service opens to the public in March, and will have every city in the world by the end of the year, according to Taneja, the startup’s founder and chief executive.

TravelDNA planned to make money by getting paid for customers referred to websites where people book flights, hotel stays or other travel arrangements.

The service will also get revenue from advertisements at the website and from deals to let travel planners know of bargains being promoted by daily-deal operations.

TravelDNA is working on a “wallet” service that would charge users subscription fees to keep track of loyalty awards for flights or hotels and then build intineraries based on trips or stays they could get using points accrued.

TravelDNA is looking to partner with tour guides, event promoters, vacation home managers and even home room-letting sites such as AirBnB to add their offerings to itinerary options.

“My husband and I went on a honeymoon to Italy,” Taneja said when asked what led to the company’s birth.

“I was completely frustrated and we realised that every single traveller has a different DNA and their idea of a vacation is different,” she continued.

“Lots of spouses and travel partners are like that; opposites attract. We thought we could solve marital and friend discord if we surface the likes they share and use those to make a great vacation.”

TravelDNA consists of seven people working out of an office in downtown San Francisco. Its advisory board includes an executive from the travel team at California Internet giant Google.

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

HotelTravel.com chief information officer, Olivier Dombey, said the company hopes to increase bookings from Thai travellers after making it easier for them to browse through the site in their own language.

“They clearly prefer to make reservations in their native language. …. Most recently we’ve seen an increase in demand for hotels in Hua Hin, Chiang Mai hotels, and hotels in Phuket from Thai nationals,” said Mr Dombey.

The company hired native speaking Thais to do the translations of the English language content pages.

The site also has a Thai language call centre that it claims remains  open 24 hours a day.

Thailand’s Department of Tourism said the Thai domestic market is worth 100 million domestic trips a year and based on the 2010 estimates, the market increased 17.3%. Average length of stay in the Thai market is 2.6 days, with an average expenditure of Bt1,737 (US$56) per day.

The figures are based on questionnaires and survey, but should not be taken as a reliable indicators of the worth of the market as the department fails to clarify the methodology or how it verifies the data it receives.

The outbound Thai travel market is gaining strength too, according to the Thai Agents Association. It believes a strong Thai baht against the US dollar and Euro is encouraging travel bookings.

TTAA said outbound travel expanded to 5.5 million trips in 2010, an increase of 37.5% over 2009. It also generated revenues exceeding Bt250 billion (US$8.15 billion).

Again the source of the data is vague and at best  it remains a ball park indicator due to conflicting information on the health of the outbound travel in 2010. The prevalent view is that the year did not deliver an increase due to political strife and violence that kept Thais at home and dampened the mood to travel.

Technology continues to be the key driver in boosting both travel agents’ business capabilities and user end-travel experience – a trend that looks set to grow well into 2012.

Wireless convergence and mobile innovation have played a pivotal role in this growth, as both travellers and travel managers are increasingly utilising this rising channel as a means to deliver and experience end-to-end solutions. This year, the number of mobile workers worldwide will exceed 1 billion and more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies will interact with their customers via mobile devices.

The Abacus’ Asia Travel Insights Survey 2011 supports this observation, showing how mobile technology has contributed to Asia’s strong rise in the global travel landscape. Asian economic growth, coupled with a surge in emerging markets and an uptake of online services, were also flagged as key growth contributors.

The survey offers compelling insights into key drivers, new players, emerging channels and market outlook for the travel industry from 2011 to 2012, with inputs from travel agents, airlines, corporate travel agent and online travel agents and hotels across Asia Pacific.

Market growth, anticipated early in the year to be on a 4% to 8% pace, has been revised now to 2% to 4%, in spite of a turbulent year for travel, including the Japan tsunami and earthquake that disrupted Asia travel very significantly.

“Despite challenges earlier in the year, Asian travel industry growth and confidence remain high as it proves its resilience in mitigating any outstanding factors,” said Abacus CEO, Robert Bailey.

“Businesses are continuing to invest into core areas of travel growth and this signifies high performance expectations over the next 12 months.”

The survey, conducted before the present  economic crisis in Europe, found that 75% of those surveyed anticipate their business will experience growth of greater than 10% in the next 12 months, with 25.8% of respondents seeing a growth of greater than 20%.

Although these figures may not be as strong currently, the emerging economic engines of Asia continue to power travel growth across the region, with key markets China and India bucking global recessionary trends and increases in GDP, translating to higher disposable income and growing middle class – increasing demand for travel services.

Mobile technology was the most heavily highlighted area from the survey, with travel players scrambling to firmly establish a foothold in the mobile and online space in order to offer greater value as well as establish a firm technological foundation. They indicated mobile transactions, social media, mobile apps and mobile-specific websites as the key areas of investment for 2012.

Looking at 2012 the report recognises the enormous growth of LCCs and lowering of prices. This means the travel industry is becoming increasingly competitive.

‘The travel businesses have become more savvy in adopting the newer technologies in order to retain a competitive edge, especially now in the areas of mobile and electronic transactions,” said Mr Bailey.

In a region that holds 56% of worldwide mobile users, Asia Pacific has proven to be a heavy hitter in mobile uptake. Over 2.1 billion people will use a mobile phone at least monthly this year, representing over half the population of the entire region, and growth will be steady, with penetration reaching 72.6% by 2015, reaching a mobile population of nearly 2.9 billion in Asia Pacific.

Mobile is on the rise, and stakeholders in the travel space find it imperative to utilise this platform in order to remain competitive. Mobile apps, great mobile specific websites, HTML5, m-commerce, near field communications (NFC) and location-based services are just some areas that can help to deliver a more compelling user experience for both travellers and travel businesses. Almost all of the respondents in the Abacus Insights Survey had invested in some mobile technology over the past year, and plan to continue to in 2012.

“Mobile continues to play a leading role in everyone’s daily lives, as well as in travel evolution, especially in Asia. While 3G, 4G and wireless broadband access surge ahead and more is invested in mobile payment gateways, the mobile device will play an even greater role for travel transactions in the coming year,” said Abacus VP marketing Brett Henry.

Mobile Internet penetration is expected to rise to 42.1% of mobile users in the region by 2015, and for many of these users, mobile is the first screen for Internet access. 50% of all new Internet connections worldwide are coming from mobile devices, and with powerful networks, greater device choices, robust mobile platforms and widespread adoption, there is a sharp increase also in mobile transactions. By 2015, global shoppers will spend about US$119 billion on goods and services bought via mobile phones.The number of mobile bookings in the travel space has also accelerated from US$20 million in 2008 to over US$200 million in 2010.

In terms of transactions, 69% of Asian consumers prefer using their mobile device for most payments. Chinese consumers were most favourable (76%), followed by India, (75%), South Korea (56%) and Japan (47%).

Abacus TripPlan is designed for business travel within Asia Pacific and offers several features including a pre-travel approval process – a common practice among Asian corporations often implemented through a manual process or separate system.

The programme will streamline trip planning alerting supervisors automatically of new trip requests that they can then approve with a single-touch anytime, anywhere, through any device.

This approval process applies to both travel within and outside of normal travel policy parameters, such as when travelling together with a client.

Another key feature is the integration with Abacus FareX and Abacus SmartPrice, through which it can offer competitive and corporate-negotiated available fares. Simultaneously, these fares are filtered based on the corporation and each traveller’s profile, ensuring full compliance with corporate travel policies while delivering savings.

“Abacus TripPlan is a ready-to-go solution that enables corporations to arrange and manage all their travel arrangements in a single platform, ensuring higher organisation productivity,” said Abacus International vice president marketing, Brett Henry.

Abacus TripPlan can be implemented as a corporate branded site with zero capital investment and promises to increase employee productivity and simplify travel management.

Organised under the supervision of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the seminar outlined the advantages of cloud software over the traditional programmes that are installed on PCs directly.

SIPA vice president, Prinya Krachangmol, said software companies in Thailand should recognise the importance of tourism and provide products to support its growth and cloud computing was the way to go.

“Cloud computing will raise competitiveness and reduce software costs for Thai companies especially their set-up costs.”

Cloud computing delivers an application via the internet and does away with the need to install expensive software in individual computers.

Mr Prinya added: “It is time to act now as we have just four years left before the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 arrives and we need to embrace the latest software channels.”

Thai Hotels Association director, Sakkarin Chorsawai, said cloud services would be a boon to hotels as they could keep data safe and reduce software costs.

“SMEs will benefit and should pursue cloud computing to ensure their data is safe in an independent location and they have access to the latest applications at a lower cost.”

Driving cloud computing in Thailand involves five industries including tourism, logistics, health care, food and agriculture and education according to a four-year marketing plan released by the  ministry (2012 to 2015).

SIPA will spend Bt130 million, this year, on five clusters led by tourism, promoting cloud computing options through road shows.

There are nine domestic destinations where software awareness related to tourism is needed. They include Pattaya in Chonburi, Kanchanaburi, Phuket, Samui in Surat Thani, Hua Hin in Prachupkhirikhan, Khao Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Bangkok.

Through Abacus Direct Connect the GDS connects its travel agency subscribers, worldwide, to THAI’s central reservation system without going through other systems.

Also, THAI will gain access to use the point-of-sale quota allocation and control the type of queries received from Abacus system, which gives THAI flexibility over flight inventory.

Flight data from THAI can also be integrated with the airline’s origin and destination revenue management system to enhance inventory display in preferred markets.

“By adopting Abacus seamless access, THAI can save time and money because they do not need to be constantly updating their GDS databases with automatic synchronisation of the DCA system.” said Abacus International Division Head of Airline Distribution, Ho Hoong Mau.

“This connectivity paves the way for THAI to manage yield effectively through other revenue management functionalities like Abacus Married Segments and Abacus Journey Data that allows the airline to optimise revenue and reduce seat wastage by driving higher trip revenue,” he added.

“Joining forces with Abacus is only the first step in our goal of regional expansion ,”  commented THAI manager passenger inventory, Chumnan Chiengkul.

“We are confident that Abacus’ extensive network across Asia will allow us to provide more services to more agents and passengers,” he said.

Singapore-based Abacus International is the Asia-Pacific’s leading provider of travel solutions and services with more than 20,000 travel agency locations in 24 markets.

More than 200 participants were updated on latest topics such as the evolution and predictions of the corporate travel landscape, as well as lessons in travel procurement.

Abacus central Asia, general manager, Pavel Spitsyn said, “The conference serves as an excellent forum for corporate agencies, corporations and Abacus to discuss as well as exchange ideas on the latest industry trends and developments. Travel agencies are growing rapidly in the region, and Abacus wants to work closely with them to help improve their productivity, work processes and customer experience.”

Delegates shared learning and insights, including the need for innovative solutions such as Abacus TripPlan and Abacus TravelIntelligence. Abacus also shared other general industry trends seen today in central Asia.

Abacus CEO Robert Bailey and Lao Airlines president, Somphone Douangdara, exchanged contracts at a ceremony in the Lao capital to establish an “exclusive” partnership just weeks ahead of the airline taking delivery of a new Airbus 320 that will be used to inaugurate a new service to Singapore.

Abacus and Lao Airlines are entering a business partnership that will run for an initial 10 years with an option to renew for another five years.

Lawyers are now working on the registration of the Lao Abacus National Marketing Company, which should be fully operational by the end of the year with the national airline holding 60% and Abacus 40% of the paid up capital.

It is understood the national marketing company will be capitalised at between US$400,000 to US$500,000, but both the airline and Abacus executives declined to confirm financial details saying the matter was in the hands of lawyers registering the company.

Abacus is owned by a consortium of Asian airlines and Sabre Inc which took a 35% stake in the Singapore headquartered company in 1998.

Since its inception in 1988, Abacus has invested US$150 million to develop and localise technology solutions for its 20,000 plus travel agency users in the region.

A joint media statement issued at the ceremony said Abacus-connected travel agents would “exclusively have access to Lao Airlines’ database of full range of fares.”

At present there are about 20 agents, mainly in Vientiane, that have Abacus terminals, but that is likely to increase significantly once the joint venture is operational by the end of the year and the airline uploads all of its promotional fares to Abacus system.

Mr Bailey noted in his presentation that a successful track record was a key factor that led to Abacus being awarded “this exclusive preferred joint venture status,” by the Lao national airline.

“Abacus sees Laos as a very important market given its rapid growth,” said Mr Bailey, who claimed the GDS would increase Lao Airlines’ distribution significantly through marketing support and travel agency promotions.

Up until the JV signing, the GDS has served the Lao market through its fully owned subsidiary Abacus Distribution Systems Thailand.

The joint venture was described as very similar in content to the Amadeus partnership with Thai Airways International, which gives the European-headquartered GDS a competitive edge in the Thai market through certain exclusivity clauses.

Abacus’s latest move should give it a strategic foothold in the Lao ticketing market that is expanding dramatically. The country’s airline ticket market generates around 400,000 booking segments a year, a small market when compared with Thailand’s 7 million segments, but industry sources say it is expanding fast, doubling in less than two years.

Most of the booking segment growth is driven by business related travel, trade missions, investment trips and diplomatic missions.

“Over the next three years it could double again,” an Abacus executive commented, who noted the flow of investment from China and Korea would encourage more airlines to fly to Laos.

There are about 50 travel agencies in Laos selling international airline tickets, but just 10 top agents control the major share. Some of them are appointed Thai Airways International ticketing agents, but the airline stipulates that they use Amadeus terminals exclusively.

Travel agents in Vientiane will watch that space carefully over the coming months to see if the airline’s joint venture with Abacus has the clout to adopt similar tactics.

The Abacus NMC will have an exclusive on the full fare inventory of Lao Airlines for all of its international services including promotional fares. In the long-run this could persuade even the most entrenched THAI appointed agents in Vientiane and Luang Prabang to break the embargo and install Abacus terminals.

It will depend largely on Lao Airlines expanding its regional network over the next six months using two Airbus 320s to gateway cities such as Bangkok, Singapore and Hanoi where passengers could be ticketed through to other airlines in the Abacus system. There are 450 bookable airlines on the GDS, but Lao Airlines will concentrate on enhancing commercial agreements with just a few namely Singapore Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, THAI, Malaysia Airlines and possibly Garuda as it considers establishing a service to Jakarta.

If the Lao Airlines decides in the future to upload its domestic fares and flights to the GDS it would further strengthen the local NMC’s earnings and encourage more travel agents to use Abacus  terminals.

Lao Airlines vice president, Seng Praseuth, said passenger traffic to Laos was growing at around 10 to 15% annually and with the arrival of two A320s later this year the airline was looking forward to building market activities through the joint venture with Abacus.

“We are taking our role seriously in this joint venture and through Abacus’ proven technology the promotion of all of all our special fares will go through Abacus,” he said.

Mr Bailey concluded his comments by describing the contract with Lao Airlines as a milestone in partnerships.

“Abacus sees Laos as an important market due to its geographic position and potential to be a travel hub in the region. Our joint business will grow significantly through promotional activities. We are excited to be the sole partner of Lao Airlines in this venture.”

Abacus can now claim business partnerships throughout the Mekong region. It joint ventures with the national airline in Vietnam and has JVs or business arrangements with private companies in Cambodia and Myanmar. In Thailand it has a fully-owned subsidiary company.

The addition of Laos to the NMC community gives Abacus 24 local ventures or partnerships across Asia, stretching from Pakistan to Korea.