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Travel industry technology today -TravelMole guest comment by new Cheapflights chief technology officer Chris Martin
It is important to emphasise that Cheapflights is a media company and not a travel company.
I bring expertise from the online media sector, from my experience at ebuyer.com and Ask Jeeves (as it was called then).
I confess that I bring a set of fresh eyes to the specifics of the travel industry but this is arguably a powerful tool, when combined with the Cheapflights team’s travel industry combined expertise of over a hundred years.
What particularly interests me and what I need to learn most about are the nuances of interfacing with the travel industry and what the key issues are.
As a vertical search site par excellence, Cheapflights has the advantage of being focused on the needs of both consumers and the travel industry. This presents exciting challenges since the needs of both are constantly evolving along with new technology platforms and services.
Over the next five years….
With advances in satellite mapping, the emergence of vociferous web communities and the increasing sophistication of today’s traveller, I see the industry will be able to leverage these advances to provide a more rounded service evolving to “place to place” offerings rather than just airport to airport.
For example, I want to travel from my home in York, England to our Cheapflights Boston Office, and stay there for five days. It’s a more rounded and informed service for me, and provides transfer details that are essential to a successful trip.
As well as introducing additional local partners to complete my travel itinerary, the service also consults recommendations from other travellers’ blogs to bias the options.
Local knowledge and travel assistance are two valuable ingredients when I’m a traveller with a problem. Add personal travel preferences and make it available on my mobile, and I have a travel agent in my pocket.
In summary, I believe that today’s on-line technologies provide a great platform for the travel industry to step up and offer customers a more comprehensive travel service than we’ve seen ever before. The race is on…
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