TravelMole Interview: Bruce Bishins, president, GENESIS

Travel agents using Hamlet have a major new tool to differentiate themselves from on-line airline ticket buyers, according to Bruce Bishins, president of GENESIS Travel Distribution System. “We think this is going to be a major tool that travel agents can use to answer that age-old question of ‘Should I buy now, or wait? Will the fare remain what it is, or go up, or go down? These are the kind of questions customers very frequently ask,” he told TravelMole. Genesis has announced it has reached an agreement with the Seattle, Washington-based Hamlet Inc. to participate in a test program for Hamlet. The predictive fare analysis tool was developed by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Southern California. Since the agreement was just released Friday, Mr Bishins said he has yet to have any reaction from the travel community. “But I think they’re going to see it’s a tremendous opportunity. There has been nothing like it before,” he said. He said agents will have a chance to learn more about the program at the Genesis/ETA orientation meetings in Toronto 21-2 February, and in Vancouver 20-21 March. For US travel agents, an overview is set for Boston 6 March at the Boston Logan Airport Hilton. FareProphet, the Genesis brand of the Hamlet software, is designed to monitor changes to air fares and to predict whether a particular fare will go up or down based on such factors as historical trends and seasonal fare filings. Consumers will have a way to decide whether they can save money by buying airline tickets now or putting it off till later. During a 41-day pilot run, Hamlet saved 607 simulated passengers a total of $283,904 on airline fares by advising when to buy and when to postpone purchases. Hamlet savings were 88.6% of optimal, Mr Bishins said. “As we tweak it, we expect that savings to be even more,” he added. He pointed out that FareProphet is not a tool to find the lowest fare. ”We already have that ability in our Genesis FareSpider product,” he said. For more information about registering for the orientation sessions, which will cover both FareSpider and FareProphet, contact Nicholas Christopher at [email protected].