Northstar

TECHNOLOGY www.travelweeklyweb.com In November 2013, Travelport and Tigerair, Singapore's largest no-frills airline, announced a new major new distribution agreement, marking the first time that Tigerair has ever distributed via the GDS channel. The partnership also sees Tigerair become Travelport's Aggregated Shopping launch partner in Asia. Alex Knigge, Group Chief Commercial Officer, Tigerair, said of the airline's partnership with Travelport, "Travelport's merchandising platform allows us to display our fares alongside those of traditional carriers and reach the travel agency community more easily...I'm confident that it will be a winning formula for travel agents and travellers alike and will allow us to achieve further growth through an additional sales platform". Launch of the latest version of Travelport Smartpoint In December last year, Travelport launched an enhanced version of its travel agency point of sale application, Travelport Smartpoint. The new-look Travelport Smartpoint incorporates a number of major enhancements based on customer feedback, whilst continuing to provide a blend of graphical user interface and point and click navigation. This blend provides travel agents with flexibility in the way they choose to work, and has greatly contributed to the success of the product. The application will also continue to translate the cryptic commands of other GDSs, meaning that agencies can reduce training and on-boarding costs of new hires. The new enhancements to Travelport Smartpoint include a faster operating speed, graphical mapping and more intuitive tools and Air availability - graphical map capabilities for agents. Enhanced hotel shopping is provided, with agents now able to see the geographic location of a hotel without needing to visit a separate program. Intelligent fare rules and advanced seat maps that are capable of showcasing all features of a seat have also been introduced, as has integration with eNett payment solutions. This integration streamlines payment options and provides agents with an additional safe, secure and fully integrated payment solution directly within their desktop environment. Jason Nash, Travelport's Vice-President, Empowered Selling Solutions & Product Innovation, says, "Travelport Smartpoint is an evolutionary solution that supports and enhances travel agents' workflow. This latest version marks a significant step forward and is part of our ongoing point of sale strategy for travel agents, which is all about providing them with the most innovative travel booking technology and deepest content, which together are making our merchandising content come alive". Innovation and the Travelport Developer Network Air and hotel search - Interactive calendar Seat map display 4 | ■ TRAVELWEEKLY ASIA | JANUARY 2014 In November 2013, Travelport announced the beta launch of Travelport Marketplace, an online retail site designed for Travelport's customers to browse, discover and access innovative products built by Travelport and partner developers who are members of the Travelport Developer Network – Travelport's third party developer community. A key component of Travelport's Open Platform strategy and its commitment to innovation, Travelport Marketplace is designed to help developers build innovative products that work with Travelport technologies and add value to Travelport-connected agencies. Travelport Marketplace provides developer network members with a marketplace to promote and sell their products and services to 67,000 Travelport-connected agencies globally. Before a full commercial launch later in 2014 and in line with its open ethos, Travelport is requesting input from the developer community on the beta product to help shape the direction and extend the content available through the platform. At this stage, customer testing with a select group of customers (four agencies and six members of the Travelport Developer Network) is taking place. In tandem with Marketplace, Travelport is also launching a Software Development Kit (now in alpha testing) for Travelport Smartpoint, which will allow developers to built plug-ins that integrate with the desktop used by the majority of Travelport agencies. www.travelweeklyweb.com

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