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Galileo International, a leading provider of electronic global distribution services (GDS) for the travel industry, today announced that it is the first GDS to offer complete Web services solutions to the travel industry.
Web services are technology-platform independent interfaces that allow Galileo customers - including travel agencies, software developers and suppliers of air, hotel, car and cruise services - to directly access Galileo's travel information and services. Galileo's customers in turn will be able to deliver travel and booking information to their consumers faster while saving significant costs.
"We're committed to lead the market in Web services innovation and development. We're currently deploying Web services with select customers, and will introduce Web services solutions to all of our customers in the upcoming months," said Janie Kaung, executive vice president and managing director of Galileo's Asia Pacific region.
"Web services will enable us to provide all of our customers with an open-systems gateway to our suite of central business information and services. This will increase customer project efficiencies and functionality while saving costs. We view Web services as an integral part of our powerful e-commerce solutions that will assist any of our customers whose business is centered on the servicing of clients via the Internet. When they become available, Web services will help set our customers apart in the ultra-competitive online environment."
With Web services, customers can easily access information from Galileo to do anything from building an Internet booking engine to integrating travel information within their Web sites with Web access as their only
requirement. For example, if a hotel wished to provide up-to-date flight information on its Web site, they could use Galileo Web services to do this without the long integration times and intimate technical knowledge previously required. With Galileo Web services, project development times can be significantly reduced, up to 75 percent in some cases. Customer information can be seamlessly integrated with Galileo data regardless of what operating system each system resides on, or what language each system is written in.
Currently, Galileo Wireless™ and Trip.com, the full-service leisure travel Web site, integrate weather data from Galileo servers into their systems using Galileo Web services. Additionally, select travel organizations will utilize Galileo's hosted Web services for accessing data, such as air fares and flight availability, from Galileo's Apollo® system. This Galileo service will then be embedded in their Web sites, offering an additional service to their online customers.
By using Web services, companies are able to forgo some of the time previously required to integrate Galileo air fare and flight availability data within their Web sites, which could result in significant savings. More importantly, Galileo customers are able to provide better travel services to their customers by connecting directly to Galileo's systems.
To deploy Web services, Galileo is using the standard, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which provides a way for applications to communicate with each other over the Internet, independent of platform. SOAP relies on structured XML data from the Apollo® and Galileo® systems to define the format of the information and typically uses HTTP to send it. Web services will be the next evolution of Galileo's current XML Select™ product offerings.
Pricing and Availability
Pricing for Galileo Web services will be based on an annual licensing fee and on a pay-for-service transaction model. Galileo is currently deploying Web services on a limited basis, and plans to announce generally available Web services solutions in the third quarter of 2002. |
