Then ask yourself these questions:

• Are high volumes of supplier booking payments creating an accounting nightmare for your payments teams?
• Are you sacrificing control, or having difficulty managing to contracted rates with your supplier base?
• Do you spend too much time resolving payment disputes?

If so, our panel of payments experts in travel booking will help you tackle this problem in a different way.

In this webinar, payment experts from Wright Express, Expedia and HotelTonight will discuss how single-use virtual accounts can help drive efficiencies in the payment and settlement process.

You will hear tips – and potential traps to avoid – when evaluating the landscape of electronic payment solutions for travel booking.

Our webinar panelists are:

• Jim Pratt, Wright Express, VP, corporate payment solutions
• Chris Richter, Expedia, Senior Project Manager, financial operations
• Jared Simon, HotelTonight, chief operating officer
• Marc DeVallette, Wright Express, product manager

Moderator:

• Kevin, Tnooz, co-founder and editor

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Thursday 23 February 2012 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

NB: Credit card image via Shutterstock.

But as the always-connected traveller turns to mobile and other devices to search and book products, travel brands must finally grasp the importance of providing a seamless multi-channel customer experience.

The rules have changed. So how do consumers use devices compared to desktop browsers? What opportunities and pitfalls should online brands look out for and capitalise on?

These and many other issues were debated in a 60-minute webinar presented by Tnooz and Tealeaf on 1 February 2012.

Panellists are:

• Geoff Galat, Tealeaf, vice president for world wide marketing
• Graham Jones, internet psychologist
• Dieter Davis, Expedia, director of web Analytics Implementation

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz, editor

Learn how to grab the attention of business travelers by using communication and collaboration tools that engage them naturally. Develop expertise in delivering the right information to the right travelers at the right moments throughout the life of the trip.

Explore highly effective tactics, from simplifying the portal interface to exploiting enterprise social networks to connecting people with the right content online.

Influence good decision-making by engaging travelers through the channels they’re already using.

Join these guest experts on this Tnooz-BCD Travel FREE webinar:

• Miriam Moscovici, director of emerging technologies at BCD Travel
• Steve Sitto, manager for corporate travel and small meetings at Genentech
• Michelle De Costa, global travel manager at Sapient

Moderator:

• Kevin May, editor and co-founder at Tnooz

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Tuesday 14 February 2012 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

The rules have changed. So how do consumers use devices compared to desktop browsers?

What opportunities and pitfalls should online brands look out for and capitalise on?

These and many other issues will be debated in this 60-minute webinar presented by Tnooz and Tealeaf on 1 February 2012.

Panellists are:

• Geoff Galat, Tealeaf, vice president for world wide marketing
• Graham Jones, internet psychologist
• Dieter Davis, Expedia, director of web Analytics Implementation

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz, editor

These and more in the first episode of TnoozLIVE.

Focusing on the Tnooz Predictions 2012, and reflecting on their Predictions 2011, are the following Tnoozers:

• Dennis Schaal, Tnooz North America editor
• Linda Fox, Tnooz Europe reporter
• Alex Bainbridge, Tnooz node/TourCMS CEO
• Evan Konwiser, Tnooz node/FlightCaster co-founder
• Stephen Joyce, Tnooz node/Rezgo CEO
• Valyn Perini, Tnooz node/OpenTravel Alliance CEO
• Gene Quinn, Tnooz CEO
• Kevin May, Tnooz editor

NB2: Our apologies for two brief spots of interference in the recording.

A result of this is that businesses across the industry, whether they are suppliers, intermediaries or travel technology companies still need to establish the best course of action for their overall strategy.

Here you can learn about the latest social and mobile trends, solutions and opportunities through this exclusive webinar hosted by Tnooz and Sabre.

The panelists for this 60-minute webinar were:

• Will Pinnell, Sabre Holdings director, mobile strategy and traveler solutions
• Sarah Kennedy Ellis, Sabre Travel Network manager for social solutions

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and moderator

Here is the full video of the webinar:

And the slides:

As leisure and corporate booking patterns change and new technology comes on-stream, how should the travel industry position itself to make the most of multiple new opportunities to provide the most efficient AND valuable means for travellers and partners?

This 60-minute webinar, produced by Tnooz and Travelport, tackled this and related issues from three unique perspectives:

• the needs of the consumer.
• the challenges facing the intermediary.
• the view of the technology provider.

Taking part in this event:

• Nina Willdorf, editor-at-large, Budget Travel (needs of the consumer)
• Donald J Buynack, president, Options Travel (challenges facing the travel agency)
• Niklas Andréen, group vice president, global hospitality and partner marketing, Travelport GDS, (view of the technology provider)

Moderator:

• Kevin May, editor and co-founder, Tnooz

Here is full recording of the webinar:

And the slides:

A result of this is that businesses across the industry, whether they are suppliers, intermediaries or travel technology companies still need to establish the best course of action for their overall strategy.

Stay ahead of this exciting yet often confusing curve by learning about the latest social and mobile trends, solutions and opportunities through this exclusive webinar hosted by Tnooz and Sabre.

The panelists for this 60-minute webinar are:

• Will Pinnell, Sabre Holdings director, mobile strategy and traveler solutions
• Sarah Kennedy Ellis, Sabre Travel Network manager for social solutions

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and moderator

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Thursday 1 December, 2011 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

So as leisure and corporate booking patterns change and new technology comes on-stream, how should the travel industry position itself to make the most of multiple new opportunities to provide the most efficient AND valuable means for travellers and partners?

This 60-minute webinar, produced by Tnooz and Travelport, will tackle this and related issues from three unique perspectives:

• the needs of the consumer.
• the challenges facing the intermediary.
• the view of the technology provider.

Taking part in this event will be:

• Nina Willdorf, editor-at-large, Budget Travel (needs of the consumer)
• Donald J Buynack, president, Options Travel (challenges facing the travel agency)
• Niklas Andréen, group vice president, global hospitality and partner marketing, Travelport GDS, (view of the technology provider)

Moderator:

• Kevin May, editor and co-founder, Tnooz

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

The traveler’s handheld device is now an integral part of the entire journey, not just from pre-trip planning and booking, but through the actual trip itself.

But what does this mean for the travel industry? What are suppliers and intermediaries doing to take advantage of this trend in traveler behavior?

This webinar by Tnooz and Amadeus explored the influence of mobile on traveler behavior from pre-trip research and booking through the life of the journey as well as the business behaviors of the suppliers servicing this always-connected traveler.

Other topics in the webinar included:

• Implications for evolution of applications
• What’s next for the industry as customers become better connected
• Collaboration and consolidation of mobile provision
• Learning from other industry sectors

Panelists:

• David Holyoke, Travel Leaders Corporate, president
• Rain Fletcher, Choice Hotels International, VP application development & architecture
• Brian Beard, Amadeus, executive travel technology consultant

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and co-founder

Here is the recording of the webinar:

Here are the slides:

Tnooz and Collinson Latitude hosted a webinar to examine next-generation ancillary revenues and how the travel industry can add value to the customer’s overall travel experience.

The 60-minute session gave attendees a better understand of how using data more effectively can build on customer loyalty through positive interaction and engagement.

The webinar featured presentations and a Q&A involving:

• Janet Titterton, Collinson Latitude, business planning director
• Alexander Meili, ICLP, European planning director
• James Berry, The Collinson Group, director product and planning

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and co-founder

Here is the webinar video:

And here are the slides:

The team of three, led by Lee Peng of development company Forecepts, used APIs from Abacus, Hoiio and OAG to produce the hack – called WhereIsMyTravelingParent – within the usual restricted time-frame.

A total of seven hacks were presented at WebinTravel this week after reaching the 24-hour deadline at 9am on Monday morning.

Each of the teams had to use at least one of the nine APIs made available to them as part of the competition, the first time Tnooz’s THack has been held in Asia, produced in association with WebinTravel and supported by Abacus, Expedia Affiliate Network and Everbread.

The concept behind WhereIsMyTravelingParent is here on Prezi, but essentially is a system where friends and family can be notified of a traveller they may be worried about when they arrive at an airport or hotel or attraction.

It works by tracking the traveller’s PNR available through Abacus, matching with live transport data on OAG and then sending text alerts from the tour guides phone to registered users.

A video taken in the early hours of Monday morning demonstrates the idea and, more importantly, that it works.

The judges praised the simplicity of the service, obvious scalability to other group types and the user friendly way it could be applied to various elements of the industry.

Congregate, a system which finds flight and hotel availability and prices, and then matches with point-to-point directions (courtesy of Jeppessen), was highly commended by the judges.

The traveler’s handheld device is now an integral part of the entire journey, not just from pre-trip planning and booking, but through the actual trip itself.

But what does this mean for the travel industry? What are suppliers and intermediaries doing to take advantage of this trend in traveler behavior?

This webinar by Tnooz and Amadeus will explore the influence of mobile on traveler behaviors from pre-trip research and booking through the life of the journey as well as the business behaviors of the suppliers servicing this always-connected traveler.

Other topics in the webinar will include:

• Implications for evolution of applications
• What’s next for the industry as customers become better connected
• Collaboration and consolidation of mobile provision
• Learning from other industry sectors

Panelists are:

• David Holyoke, Travel Leaders Corporate, president
• Rain Fletcher, Choice Hotels International, VP application development & architecture
• Brian Beard, Amadeus, executive travel technology consultant

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and co-founder

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

This Tnooz-Collinson Latitude webinar will focus on next-generation ancillary revenues and how the travel industry can add value to the customer’s overall travel experience.

The 60-minute session will give attendees a better understand of how using data more effectively can build on customer loyalty through positive interaction and engagement.

Other areas covered in the webinar:

• What is next-generation ancillary revenue?
• What is value creation and how can brands add value to the overall travel experience?
• Building on existing ancillary revenue programmes.
• What the travel industry can learn from other sectors (eg. retail).
• Adding value to loyalty programmes.
• Utilising data effectively (more relevant and personalised targeting)
• Case study.

Panelists are:

• Janet Titterton, Collinson Latitude, business planning director
• Alexander Meili, ICLP, European planning director
• James Berry, The Collinson Group, director product and planning

Moderator:

• Kevin May, Tnooz editor and co-founder

Attendees will be able to interact live throughout the event using the webinar’s chat facilities.

This FREE 60-minute webinar takes place on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11am US/4pm UK/5pm Central Europe (all times local).

You can reserve your FREE seat at this webinar HERE.

The webinar is powered by GoToMeeting. System requirements: Windows7, Vista, XP or 2003 (PC users) or Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or newer (Mac users).

We will record the webinar and publish on Tnooz following the event for those who cannot attend live.

Space is limited. Register for FREE now!

But travel agents need to stay one step ahead of customer expectations to ensure a seamless travel experience.

Tnooz and Sabre Travel Network hosted a discussion around the emerging needs of travel professionals, and learn how to stay ahead of the pack.

The webinar featured presentations, discussion and audience Q&A by:

• Pravin Muthukumar, Sabre Travel Network business development manager, Sabre Red Apps
• Pradeep Rao, Sabre Travel Network Senior Director

• Kevin May, Tnooz Editor, Moderator

Here is the webinar video:

And the slides:

At some point during the discussion at ITA Software‘s offices, Glenn McDonald, a user interface engineer at Google, who was sitting next to me, commented that “innovation isn’t really a tangible thing”.

It’s more a reflection of how we perceive something tangible. Like magic. When we say something is magical, that’s another way of stating that we don’t understand how it works, McDonald surmised.

Real innovation isn’t that much different from magic; it occurs when someone solves a problem by removing a constraint that everyone else had taken for granted.

McDonald’s analogy inspired me to make two far less elegant and much more incendiary comments, such as “APIs are evil” and “XML is dead; we just don’t know it yet”.

This, inevitably, has created a bit of a stir, and I can understand why I need to provide some further explanation.

Of course I don’t actually believe that programming interfaces are intrinsically bad, and I’m sure that XML will be around for decades to come.

What I meant is that the ways in which we store, process and exchange data have become obsolete.

Almost everything in online travel today was engineered under this constraint: data costs money, so we need to be as efficient as possible in handling it.

This has defined how our products and companies have evolved. Data has been locked away in silos. Applications talk to the outside world through throttled peepholes that are only capable of answering specific questions with specific answers.

Big Data is the next frontier. Jim Gray called it the Fourth Paradigm, “analogous to when the printing press was invented”.

It has already revolutionised Internet search, social media, astronomy, atmospheric science, genomics, biochemistry, and military surveillance.

In Big Data there are no requests, no predefined parameters and no structured responses. You are free to intersect anything with anything. You can analyse, mutate, group, split, reorder in any way you can imagine.

There are no limits to what you can ask and how often you can ask it. The only constraints are your imagination and the number of computers you have at your disposal.

Suddenly, like magic, anything is possible.

Big Data is not just a set of technologies that can be used to solve hard problems, it is a new way of looking at the problems themselves. And those who master these technologies gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Consider this single example: speed is one of the most important ingredients of a good search experience. In the last fifteen years, no travel company – startup, OTA, airline or GDS – has been able to build and launch an airfare search that returns results in under a second.

One company, a pioneer of Big Data that we all know well, coming from outside of the industry, has just achieved it in less than six months.

We as an industry, and as a community, should consider this our wake-up call. We need to learn the craft of Big Data. We need to invest in the technology of massively parallel processing and scalable storage systems.

Until recently, these technologies were locked away in the IP vaults of big search companies.

But the rise of social media, which has produced more data than had been previously created in all of history of mankind, has forced engineers to re-invent storage, processing, communication protocols – everything.

And Open Source has made these technologies available to any and all of us. Today, they include Hadoop, Disco, Cassandra, HBase, CouchDB, MongoDB and others.

These will evolve over time, but what matters is that learning how to use them will forever change the way we build products and companies.

We also need to take a hard look at all the historical and real-time data that we control, and identify what we can release to the world. We need to create large, open and free data-sets and we need to start publishing real time data streams.

We will be giving up some control and the outcome might appear uncertain. But we cannot not err on the side of excessive caution, because the rewards outweigh the risks. And the cost of doing nothing is greatest of all.

If we do this, others will be inspired to do the same. And this will lead to unpredictable and extraordinary things.

NB: Chime in on Twitter: #bringthemagicback

A team of a half-dozen or so Amadeus developers also used Amadeus Master Pricer as air became the default transportation option for Patriots fans who may want to mull their travel choices for away games at the Buffalo Bills or Oakland Raiders on the upcoming NFL schedule, for instance.

“The tool automatically researches air and hotels using the recommendation engines and selects the cheapest flight and hotel based on other travelers’ past trips,” Jerome Petit, Amadeus manager of Software Engineering Product Development, North America, explains a couple of days after the 24-hour THack. “Dates are automatically centered around the weekend of the event so by default the user is not asked for usual search parameters such as city pairs and dates.”

The Amadeus developers added rail options from SilverRail, and activities idea from Goby, which were plotted on a Google Map.

The social element was the “final touch,” Petit says, noting that users could share their trip plans on Facebook.

The application was coded using Google Web Toolkit for the front end, although the Amadeus developers concede they didn’t have enough time to fine-tune the user interface.

THacks’ two judges, Tnooz Nodes Valyn Perini and Glenn Gruber, based their selection on six assigned criteria: originality/innovation; the quality of final product; the explanation of the hack’s capability; the opportunity within existing or new systems; the fitness for the purpose; and commercial viability/funding potential.

Although perhaps a couple of dozen developers may have participated in the THack, only two other hacks were presented after undoubtedly a long night of coding and caffeine.

Daniel DuVal, who leads mobile efforts for Delta Air Lines, created an Android app using the Traxo and Goby APIs.

Duval’s app pushed out in-destination activities to users from Goby based on their Traxo itineraries. The app was designed to provide flight updates and refresh activity options as users ambled around a city.

And Roman Peskin, co-founder and CEO of DealAngel, created an app using the Amadeus hotel API and Goby to graphically display hotel rates and available activities so that users could determine the most appropriate travel dates based on six months of pricing and their desired activities.

Of the three hacks, Perini said the Amadeus hack was the most commercially viable as fans of particular teams would were be interested and the hack could be aimed at particular markets.

Gruber, acknowledging that Amadeus may have had an advantage because six or seven local developers were involved, liked the fact that the Amadeus tool incorporated social media and the potential of the social graph.

The other hacks picked up support, as well.

Perini characterized DuVal’s Android app, which pushes activities recommendations to users, as “really forward thinking,” although she added it “might be a little ahead of the curve.”

From the audience, Stephen Joyce, who heads Rezgo and is a Tnooz Node, said he was “impressed” with the hotel pricing aspect of Peskin’s hack, which might be used by consumers to drive decision-making.

Several developers noted they would have been more successful if they had been given some additional time and it was suggested it would be helpful if API providers would provide examples of ways to use their APIs.

Note: Amadeus, along with ITA Software, were sponsors of THack Boston.

But, participating in a panel discussion during the THack event at ITA Software offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hopper CEO Fred Lalonde certainly had some of the programmers talking even hours later with his assertions that APIs are “evil” and that “XML is dead, we just don’t know it yet”.

The backdrop for Lalonde’s views is what he believes is a period of tech innovation in the works which may one day be compared to the invention of the wheel and the sextant.

Lalonde believes strides in storage technologies, including cloud computing, and open systems will enable travel — and non-travel — companies to process massive amounts of data, and the end product will be tremendously innovative solutions.

Different parties will be able to merge and interpret this data in unforeseen ways, Lalonde maintains.

Referring to Facebook’s “firehose” of a data feed, Lalonde says companies should seek access to the most amount of data possible, although he concedes the hope is that your computers won’t “blow up” in the process.

APIs are evil, Lalonde says, because they generally provide access to limited amounts of data for individual functions. And, this is a burden to the distribution process, slowing innovation.

In that regard, there is a reason Google’s new Flight Search product doesn’t rely on an API, Lalonde says.

XML’s days are numbered, Lalonde argues, because of its layers of complexity, whereas messaging in this new era of data processing needs to be more “lightweight”.

Of course, there were plenty of developers at the THack who would counter that all technologies die eventually, but XML does have more than a few good years ahead of it.

Other techies on the open-ended panel retold some of their war stories regarding their battles against uncooperative or elusive data.

Todd Williamson, an ITA Software engineer who works on the QPX airfare shopping and pricing system, says years ago ATPCO didn’t have documentation about its fares’ data, but it has “gotten better” and ATPCO today documents about 80% of its airline data.

“Liberating the data from that perspective was very different than it is now,” Williamson says.

These ITA engineers seem to be preoccupied with data liberation.

Glenn McDonald, who works on ITA’s Needlebase data aggregation tool, grapples with the real-time availability of data and explains that the initial step is to access all the data “and liberate it from what it is behind.”

As the THackers in the audience set out to choose which APIs to tap into and to begin work on their 24-hour hacks, the alleged evils, transgressions and liberation of data were definitely on their minds.

NB: Disclosure – Frederic Lalonde is the chairman of Tnooz.

THack is Tnooz’s unique event which brings together travel industry APIs and the development community to brainstorm and and create new digital travel products and web or mobile-based tools.

THack Singapore is sponsored by Abacus and Expedia Affiliate Network and produced in association with WebinTravel.

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The event continues and expands on the successful internal developer days held by Abacus in previous years at WIT.

Developers from across the travel, tourism and hospitality industry are welcome to attend, as well as engineers and technicians from local academic institutions in the region.

The events is FREE for developers to attend and participate.

Tnooz is coordinating the collection of APIs being made available to those taking part in the event.

Confirmed so far include (others to be added in the coming weeks):

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Open APIs used in previous THack events include:

• Google Maps
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Wikipedia
• Flickr
• Panoramio
• Android voice control

The event will have the following timetable:

Sunday 16 October

• 9am – Siloso 4, Shangri-La Sentosa Resort.
• Various initiatives will run throughout the day.

Monday 17 October

• 9am – development time ends
• 11.45 – presentation of entries at the WIT Bootcamp, Ballroom 2, Suntec Convention Centre.

Tnooz is also hosting its Appy Hour social event at the end of Day One of the main WIT Conference on Tuesday 18 October, from 6pm to 8.30pm (venue TBC).

NB: Travel companies wanting to provide an API and developers wishing to attend should contact Tnooz editor Kevin May for more information.

NB2: Commercial sponsorship opportunities are available by contacting Tnooz CEO Gene Quinn.

NB3: More information about the WebinTravel Conference, including registration, main WIT programme and WIT Bootcamp.