Media Release
Market Update: Webjet's Travel Services Aggregation Platform
1st December 2003
Initially announced to the market on 27 February, Webjet's Travel Service Aggregator (TSA) project being developed by Microsoft is now close to production release.
As envisaged in our market release 01 September 2003 the next generation travel services platform is now in final focus group and Beta testing and is on schedule and on budget for release at the end of this year.
The TSA platform will enable Webjet customers to book travel services such as flights, car rental and accommodation, sourced dynamically from a variety of suppliers. Customers will be able to construct and purchase highly customised itineraries in real time on line and will give customers greater control over their travel plans including price, by allowing them to obtain the best possible deals from a range of suppliers. In effect the TSA platform allows customers to become their own wholesaler and holiday packager.
Webjet is currently assessing two possible release windows, which subject to general market conditions relating to airline promotions and Christmas sale activity, may be either the 18th December or early January. The final release date will be locked in on 12th December.
The new platform will allow regular users of the Webjet service to store their preferences when it comes to booking flights, cars and accommodation - and have these preferences factored into the offers that the platform collects on behalf the consumer. Webjet is seeking to use new generation .NET technology to deliver much of the personalisation traditionally offered by travel agents, but at a much lower cost to the consumer.
Commenting, Webjet's Managing Director, David Clarke, said: "When we announced this project on 27 February 2003 we said at that time we required a quality and trustworthy solution which could be delivered in a very short time frame and we were massively impressed by the level of commitment we saw from Microsoft. Those expectations have been delivered by Microsoft on schedule and on budget despite an enormously turbulent time in the travel industry in Australia which has required considerable flexibility in the development path where we have needed to contend with a significant number of external changes.
In this area our special association with Galileo has been of inestimable value in ensuring that we have been able to tap into the very latest Galileo web services to produce such a comprehensive product in what is an extraordinarily short time scale. The commitment and enthusiasm from our special friends at Microsoft and Galileo has been far beyond our expectations.
We believe the new platform will provide a unique differentiation relative to airline Internet offering and provide our customers with a range of services and simplicity of use but with extraordinary flexibility which is quite unprecedented. It will also deliver Webjet with a lower operating cost base going forward and the opportunity to further increase the scale of our business with only marginal incremental cost."