ORLANDO, Fla. -- GTE Internetworking and Automated Travel Systems
said Omega World Travel of Fairfax, Va., will be the first customer
for a trial of TravelXpress, a speech-recognition system for
planning and booking air travel.
TravelXpress merges GTE's speech-recognition technology with
ATS's ResFax software. The system begins work when a traveler makes
a call to request air fare and flight information. Options are
faxed to the traveler, who can then use the callback-to-book
feature of TravelXpress to request flights by referencing
information on the fax form.
Dan Bohan, Omega World Travel's chief operating officer, said,
"We estimate that we can save anywhere from 40% to 60% in staffing
and related costs."
GTE and ATS are offering the TravelXpress Service primarily to
agencies for deployment to corporate customers. The service is
priced at a "competitive" fee per call, with no minimum volume
requirement. For agencies or corporate travel departments that
prefer to "private label" the products as a custom solution, there
is a nominal, one-time set-up fee.
TravelXpress can be deployed without purchasing hardware or
software because GTE Internetworking delivers it on a service
bureau basis through its Web Hosting Operation Center.