Atlanta, 12.10.2009
Travelport, one of the world’s leading providers of global distribution systems (GDS), today announced details of the completion of the full conversion of Apple Vacations, the largest tour operator in North America, from Sabre to Travelport for its Worldspan system. Through the five-year agreement, Travelport’s Worldspan platform has become Apple Vacations preferred GDS, providing access to traditional air, rail and hotel content as well as the added ability to book low cost air content. The Travelport deal also provides Apple Vacations with three strategic solutions including industry leading e-Pricing™, to ensure travelers have the most advanced tools for shopping low fares; Travelport Rapid Reprice™, an automated ticket repricing product and XML Pro™, a Web Services solution enabling fast and efficient interface with Worldspan and the exchange of structured data.
Jeff Mullen, executive vice president, Apple Vacations, commented, “We made the conversion to Travelport for many reasons but chief among these is that the Travelport team invested considerable time in analyzing our business and consulting with us beforehand and during, to ensure they understood our goals and challenges. Travelport has definitely delivered functionality and advanced technology that we simply did not have previously, that enables our agents to increase productivity and efficiency.”
Added Mullen from Apple Vacations, “For example, we’ve seen a huge decrease in the number of entries it takes our agents to search and find the best itinerary and pricing options, going on average from eight entries now down to just one. We are very pleased with how Travelport handled the conversion – they’ve been very responsive and it has been very smooth and an astounding success.”
“Travelport is delighted to partner with Apple Vacations, a business that has consistently been recognized for its superior customer service and multiple ‘best tour operator’ awards,” said Travis Christ, president, The Americas of Travelport GDS.
“Through this agreement with Apple Vacations, a well-known tour operator, Travelport is now the GDS powering some of the biggest names in the leisure travel vacation business. We are especially pleased to deliver the functionality and technology that Apple Vacations needs to enable them to grow and succeed. “
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Note to Editors
Apple Vacations has implemented Travelport Rapid RepriceTM the industry leading product that has been automating the complex, time-consuming ticket exchange processes since 1999. Travelport Rapid RepriceTM enables Apple Vacations to increase efficiency by automatically recalculating the price of a ticket in a fraction of the time it takes to recalculate manually. The product automatically integrates fare and rule categories for voluntary changes, net fares, private fares and fare-by-rule from ATPCO filed fares.
A significant decrease in the instances of airline debit memos can be expected due to the products superior data integrity and repricing accuracy. Travelport Rapid RepriceTM facilitates repricing of tickets irrespective of the booking system that issued the ticket and has been delivering financial rewards to some of the world’s largest agency and airline customers. More than 100 million fully automated transactions have been processed since launch, demonstrating the product’s unique functionality and scalability.
Apple Vacations has also deployed Travelport e-Pricing™, the travel industry’s first multi-server-based pricing technology powering an unrivalled suite of low-fare shopping solutions that accesses the world’s best and lowest fares. Powering the world’s major online travel retailers and leading travel providers, e-Pricing is capable of searching millions of fares and hundreds of thousands of itinerary options to find the lowest available fares and ensures airlines, consumers and travel agents get the information and choice they expect. The dynamic e-Pricing engine provides the fastest, most accurate fare searches, and yields more comprehensive itinerary results from a growing universe of Travelport participating airlines.
Apple Vacations is also utilizing XML Pro™, Travelport’s leading XML solution for fast and efficient interface with a GDS that provides an affordable solution for travel companies to exchange structured data, as well as reduces operating costs and system maintenance. XML Pro also eliminates the need for suppliers and retailers to use third-party solutions for GDS interface, and employs the latest OpenTravel Alliance universal data transmission specifications for travel.
About Travelport
Travelport is one of the world's largest travel conglomerates offering broad based business services to companies operating in the global travel industry. Travelport is comprised of the global distribution system (GDS) business that includes the Worldspan and Galileo brands; GTA, a leading global, multi-channel provider of hotel and ground services; IT Services and Software, which hosts mission critical applications and provides business and data analysis solutions for major airlines. With 2008 revenues of $2.5 billion, Travelport operates in 160 countries and has over 5,500 employees.
Travelport also owns approximately 48% of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW), a leading global online travel company.
Travelport is a private company owned by The Blackstone Group, One Equity Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures and Travelport management.
About Apple Vacations
Professional travel agents trust Apple Vacations, America's Favorite Vacation Company. For 40 years, the company has provided affordable, top quality vacation packages from U.S. departure cities nationwide to vacation destinations throughout Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii and Europe, as well as ski resorts in the US and Canada. With the support of travel agents, Apple Vacations has delivered more passengers to Mexico and the Dominican Republic than any other North American tour operator. Apple Vacations is consistently voted "Best Tour Operator to Mexico" as well as "Best Tour Operator to the Caribbean" by readers of the leading travel trade magazines. For more information and to find a travel agent near you, visit www.applevacations.com.
Media Contact:
Jill Brenner
Travelport
Director of Corporate Communications
+1 973 939 1325
jill.brenner@travelport.com