The future of travel is undeniably changing as the big three technology providers invest in mobile platforms that work on your smartphone, android, laptop or tablet. Your nine to five work day could give way to a 24/7 cycle of accessibility and just like work emails coming through on your smartphone, agents can now make and change bookings anywhere in the world, provided they have the right software.

Whether you see this transition as a blessing or a curse, the technology industry is pulling out all the stops to enable mobile and more user-friendly interfaces to thrive.
Amadeus Mobile Access is a new mobile and tablet based reservation tool released in November while Sabre Pacific’s Abacus Mobile was announced in September. Travelport has developed its mobile product and has stated the release in Australia is imminent. “The mobile space is where everyone is going so nearly everything that we are developing now is going to have to fit into that mobile space,” Travelport Pacific general manager Alexandra Fitzpatrick said.

TIME ON YOUR HANDS
The advantages of mobile technology are obvious for home working agents and those who spend time out of the office. However, for the larger agencies, which have established after-hours processes in place, it seems less relevant. Sabre Pacific reports that this has not been the case with their new mobile release. “Consultants from larger agencies have expressed interest in having access to Abacus Mobile to monitor urgent waiting lists and check their queues while commuting to work,” Sabre Pacific chief information officer Mark Mison said.

Client relationships can be strengthened by the fast response that mobile access enables and the response of agents to Abacus Mobile has been positive. “Their customers are enjoying better service while their agents are experiencing enhanced freedom and flexibility in the way they operate,” Mison said. “It allows travel agents to provide a premium service to existing customers, ensuring customer loyalty with no additional cost involved,”  Amadeus Asia Pacific Business Solutions vice president Bruno des Fontaines said.

On the flip side, mobile access means heightened customer expectations for an immediate response. “If technology shapes consumer behaviour, then right now, it’s all about using mobile devices to research, book or amend travel plans on the fly,” Amadeus IT Pacific managing director Sari Vahakoski said.

Responsive, quick technology is crucial to the success of travel agencies and Travelport intends to tap into this by releasing a rapid re-price product in the new year, which will allow agents to quickly re-price and re-book a flight.

NO MORE BLUE SCREEN?
The blue screen is synonymous with the travel industry, with lines of code that are mind-boggling to non-agents. With a chunky HTML font, it looks antiquated when compared to other software applications.

So why has the blue screen interface lasted so long? The reason is that it allows veteran users to sell content quickly. Sabre Pacific has converged the old-school interface with a graphical view, more akin to the user-friendly search and book technology found online, to ease agents into the transition. “We have done tests and the graphical view is just as fast as the blue screen GDS,” Mison said.

The popularity of tablets over laptops has registered with travel technology providers and this is driving the development of new software. “Long term we will see a convergence of interfaces and what we are seeing is that the future is going to look similar to the experience a user sees on a tablet or smartphone,” Mison said. The tablet or smartphone experience is what pundits call the graphical view and the future of desktop and mobile GDS seems to lie with a graphical front-end taking over from the traditional blue screen.

Sabre Red has a graphical view workflow as a blue screen alternative. Travelport has launched the Smartpoint App which adds on to the Galileo desktop and allows agents to use a click and point functionality instead of the codes that are ubiquitous with the blue screen. This may mean less training for agents as codes become redundant. “This consumerisation of travel is much more logical for a first time user as it looks like a conventional website and for someone new coming into the industry – and unfamiliar with the cryptic codes – it’s much easier to use,” Mison said.

BEATING THE COMPETITION
With the rise of travel aggregator websites that are free for consumers to use, such as agoda.com and booking.com, can travel agency GDS systems compete? For Travelport general manager Alexandra Fitzpatrick, speed and convenience are the greatest selling points of their Universal Desktop product. “You can shop on one screen… and you couldn’t have that at home as you’d have to go through 10 different sites to find the best rate. It is much faster than you could do at home,” Fitzpatrick said.

Booking tools are now expected to exhibit the characteristics that agents are familiar with in their private website use. “Primarily the experiences and the behaviours and the trends that we’re seeing coming out of people’s social and personal life are starting to translate across into their business life,” Mison said.

Travelport’s Universal Desktop taps into online resources as well as conventional GDS for one multi-source booking platform. “You can book your air, cruise, travel insurance and hotel content and keep all of that data in one place. It brings everything together to one spot,” Fitzpatrick said.

The ability to search online platforms allows agents to tailor their content searches and respond to bespoke requests. “A lot of people want to book content that’s a little bit out of the way, they may want to book boutique hotels and there could be specific rail or some safari lodge. They have done a lot of research and found that it’s not that easy to book that, so the Universal Desktop will facilitate that,” Fitzpatrick said.