OmniTourism First Past the Post with England Net

OmniTourism (UK) one of Europe’s leading suppliers of Destination Management Systems has formally put its backing behind Visit Britain’s EnglandNet project by becoming the first supplier to officially comply with, and be accredited by, the certificate for data integration of accommodation data.

The EnglandNet project, which has been backed by government funding, is planned to facilitate the on-line revolution for England’s Tourist Boards both at regional and local level.

Seen as complimentary to their own services, Brian Witthoft of OmniTourism, commented, “Whilst a number of attempts have been made in the past to develop a national infrastructure this time we feel that many of the areas that need to be looked at are indeed being fully examined. This includes funding, interoperability with suppliers like OmniTourism, project management and of course commercial cooperation.

It is heartening for us to have clarity in the market, which allows us to support not only our existing client base with confidence but also our new and potential customers.” He added, “The toolsets we have in place such as the browser based Extranet for member organisations will complement the England Net goals”.

Dr. Paul Byerley, EnglandNet Project Director, said, “I am very happy that through our pathfinder project with South West Tourism, OmniTourism have made the commitment to facilitate interoperability with EnglandNet. EnglandNet is a national infrastructure of online services, which will; facilitate the creation of trade and consumer communities, provide brochure publishing and marketing services for the regional tourist boards, and enable national distribution over Internet to end-consumers.

Part of this infrastructure already exists in the form of destination management systems such as OmniTourism’s Integra product. Operated by local and regional tourist boards these contain the content descriptions of local accommodation, events, activities and attractions. EnglandNet, by connecting, will allow local data to be accessed from national portals such as those operated by Visit Britain. All booking of tourism product by visitors to these national portals will take place on booking systems connected to EnglandNet. “

Dr. Byerley added, “OmniTourism is an important supplier of destination management systems and we are working with them to ensure that their systems will generate a major boost in bookings of local product”.

OmniTourism with offices in the United Kingdom and USA already possess distribution channels for data and see this as a key factor in the future of Destination data.

“One of OmniTourism’s main strands of development is the electronic distribution of product from all systems into those channels where it will create most business” noted Witthoft.

OmniTourism (UK) +44 1403 865800 Visit Britain +44 208 846 9000