It is a move aimed at improving passengers’ ability to shop, book and manage their journeys between cities, besides enhance airlines’ direct relationship with their passengers. Travel specialist, SITA has announced a partnership with Datalex, which provides travel distribution software and solutions.
The two companies have launched SITA’s new Horizon e-commerce platform, which provides airlines a sales and service portal. The technology allows airlines to drive their direct distribution strategies by enabling them to offer new shopping and merchandising features online.
Passengers are increasingly taking control of managing their journey and demand always-on, anywhere access to search, reserve and manage their travel including flights, optional services, checking-in, making car hire and hotel reservations as well as altering their bookings, if required.
According to the 2012 SITA IT Trends Survey, almost all airlines now sell tickets through their web sites and over 70 per cent also sell ancillary services. Within three years this is forecast to increase to over 90 per cent.
Horizon e-commerce is used by more than 30 airlines worldwide and with the newly updated sales and service portal it can now meet changing passenger demands.
The updated portal works in real time to provide flexible searching and suggests relevant offers to passengers by continually monitoring their input into an airline’s website. Passengers will be able to see the right fare at the right time and are able to purchase all their travel requirements in one place. They will be able to shop not only by origin and destination but also by calendar, their desired experience, travel budget, or by using a map.
