Abacus launches Abacus WebConnect

Abacus International today officially launched Abacus WebConnect, their latest toolkit that enables travel agents to develop customised online booking solutions for selling travel products over the internet real-time.

Using Abacus’ WebConnect, a technology that enables travel agents to connect their websites to Abacus’ content and functionalities, agents are now able to create their own customised look and feel on a website that provides online travellers with real-time access to search and make bookings for air, hotel and car content as well as travel insurance and package holidays.

“Abacus is assisting the entire travel industry to move with the times and is providing opportunities to allow travel agents to grow alternate revenue sources with tools like Abacus WebConnect. This latest business-to-customer solution (B2C) empowers travel agents to boost their online presence and provides their travellers with access to online bookings for both air and non-air travel,” said Ms Aileen Tan, Vice President, Centres of Excellence at Abacus International. 

“The internet is a powerful resource, and with increasing internet usage in Asia, travellers want more online options to search and book travel content themselves,” added Ms Tan. “Abacus understands this need and provides the necessary content, technology, infrastructure, network and tools to assist travel agents and partners to tap into this growing online travel market.”

In addition to providing value-added tools and content, Abacus is also working with technology partners to offer a variety of seamless end-to-end solutions. flightsXML Private Limited, a technology solutions provider to the travel industry is first to use Abacus’ toolkit to develop FaresWhiz (XML Edition).

FaresWhiz (XML Edition), the latest offering from flightsXML, affords travel agents the added flexibility to develop their own high-volume web booking engine for the real-time fares, flight schedules, seat availability, and tax information through Abacus, whilst allowing full integration with the agency’s existing fares and membership databases.

“With strategic tie-ups with our valued partners, flightsXML is able to offer seamless end-to-end solutions for our Asia-Pacific customers,” said Mr Terry Wong, Director of flightsXML Private Limited. “We have successfully integrated our proprietary solutions to interface with Abacus’ host system to empower and enable our customers to take advantage of the low-cost internet channel and to enhance their value proposition and business competitiveness,” he said.

Ellone Chan, Director of Sales of Singapore-based one stop travel portal P2P Travel Exchange, said that upgrading her online travel bookings website to FaresWhiz (XML Edition) has made a phenomenal difference to their business in terms of sales and business margins. “Previously, our online travel portal could only offer interface into third party booking systems and the ability to search for fares. Bookings still needed to be made by my staff and were very time consuming. The connectivity to Abacus facilitating live bookings has made a significant difference in the productivity of my staff, as customers now search and book themselves, thus cutting down on time required on servicing each online enquiry,” said Ms Chan.

“That now frees up my staff to concentrate on other aspects of our business such as customer service management and helping us to grow our company by reaching out to more customers both in and outside Singapore,” she added.

Abacus WebConnect and FareWhiz (XML Edition) are now available to travel agents throughout Abacus’ 22 markets in Asia-Pacific. FlightsXML are planning the rollout of their next version, FareWhiz.net, including a payment gateway throughout the region by Q4 2005.

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