CANCUN — Xcelerator, the soon-to-launch travel agent platform that will integrate itinerary management, payment summaries and detailed client profiling while facilitating bookings, drew plenty of enthusiasm from agents who got a sneak peek during the Mark Travel Corp. Summit here last week.
"This is amazing,"said Sue Linderholm of Value Travel in Edina, Minn. "It's going to save us a lot of time."
The tool, to launch Nov. 30, was developed by Trisept Solutions, the company behind the Vax VacationAccess agent booking platform.
WayBlazer, the travel industry cognitive computing startup created by Travelocity founder Terry Jones, is also involved in the project and is leveraging its partnership with IBM Watson to develop a dynamic search engine for trip itineraries.
"This system will allow the agent to be able to become an expert on a much greater area of the world than they might have otherwise," WayBlazer CEO Felix Laboy said.
Xcelerator was designed over two years, with an investment that Trisept President John Ische would only say was in the millions. Xcelerator itself is not a booking tool. Rather, it will work symbiotically with Vax and suppliers' own booking platforms.
So far, 36 suppliers have signed up, among them Trisept's sister company Funjet, Universal Studios Vacations and brands associated with Globus, Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean International and Trafalgar.
Agents using Xcelerator will be able to jump directly to booking sites. Once a trip is booked, Xcelerator will assimilate the various bookings into a unified itinerary. It enables agents to more easily prepare itineraries that involve not only hotels, airlines and car rentals that already work with Vax, but also cruises and guided tours. The tool enables agents to merge multiple reservations into one payment summary.
Several agents at the Mark Summit said they were at least as excited about the client profile tool, which goes beyond ClientBase. Paula Schendel, a supplier relations manager for Carlson Wagonlit Travel, called it "customer relations at its finest."
To develop what Ische described as "deep customer profiles," Xcelerator will track bookings and searches done on behalf of a client. It will also offer agents the opportunity to feed in a vast array of information.
Using check boxes, they'll be able to record simple preferences, such as whether a client likes all-inclusive resorts, condos or cruises, plus higher-level data, such as whether a cruiser prefers to take self-guided shore excursions.
Perhaps the most interesting Xcelerator innovation will be evident when an agent searches for a trip for a returning client. Through the power of cognitive computing, the agent will be able to query using a natural language search.
For example, Laboy said, an agent could enter a search for a "family friendly" resort, and Xcelerator would be able to find it even if its marketing doesn't use that term.
When it launches at the end of November, Xcelerator will feature its booking link to Vax, as well as the itinerary building and payment summary functions. The IBM Watson-powered searches are targeted for launch on Feb. 1.
Agents can test Xcelerator free from Nov. 30 to Jan. 31. After that, it will cost $20 per month per user or $200 for a yearly subscription.