XML standards will never be widely used

WTM Special Report: XML standards are failing to keep up with the requirements of the travel industry.

That’s according to Teletext Holidays technical director, Gordon Maynard and Open Travel Alliance (OTA) board member, Alan Young.

Maynard, whose company has used XML to access travel inventory from multiple suppliers since 2004, says the company has developed, and largely implemented, its own XML standard in the absence of a viable industry-wide alternative.

He said that TORIX (Tour Operator Reservations In XML), the XML messaging standard developed in association with the Travel Technology Initiative to allow the distribution of data between operators, agents and other intermediaries, has received widespread support from the industry but in practice is not the XML standard widely used in the industry.

Maynard says work began at Teletext in 2004 to explore XML options to access content from hotel consolidators such as Octopustravel.com.

“Hotel content had less of the legacy issues that we experienced with the airlines and package holiday content because entrants like Octopus are using modern systems. Despite that there is little XML standardisation, so we’ve had to accommodate that.”

He was speaking at the EyeForTravel Travel Distribution conference at this year’s World Travel Market. Speaking on the same panel was Daniele Mancini, director of e-Business at the Carnival Corporation-owned Costa Cruises. He said that his company has also developed its own XML messaging rather than adopting an industry standard.

Maynard said that before XML, Teletext used a database of content rather than live feeds, which required regular updating.

“We moved away from the database model because we wanted to get live links into the inventory of suppliers. We’ve realised the database model will not take us forward,” he said.

“Most of our interfaces are not standard because we are ahead of the standards. Instead we have to put layers of logic in to plug the gap with suppliers,” said Maynard.

He said that Teletext has used TORIX once to work with a supplier, but said that even then adjustments were made.

Speaking at the same conference, Young of OTA, a not-for-profit organization that works with travel companies to improve connections between multiple travel systems, promoted the uptake of XML by travel companies, but said standards were of limited use to the industry.

“Standards will never fully exist because of the different business processes of travel companies, plus from a competitive perspective, companies want to adapt standards to give them a competitive edge.

“Standards will never be fully adopted in the generic format,” said Mr Young. 

Rounding off the debate, Mr Maynard was more hopeful, saying: “Standards are still valuable because they outline a framework within which everyone should be working and eventually I think we will close the gap.”

Report by Ginny McGrath