Galileo Asia Announces PrivateFares™ Enhancements Providing More Validated Fares Options and Outsourced Data Entry

Galileo International, a leading provider of electronic global distribution services for the travel industry, today announced two enhancements to its PrivateFares™ product, which combines private and public fares into one display. Enhanced functionality within the Galileo® system now automatically validates more private fare rules to provide the best applicable fares in displays and quotes. This ensures fares comply with relevant rules and offers travel agents an even higher-degree of private fares accuracy. Additionally, a new Galileo service has been introduced offering third-party data entry of fares and fare rules into PrivateFares.

Galileo's new enhanced validation feature is integrated into the booking process. Automatic validation ensures bookings will have even higher levels of adherence to fare rules that have been entered. This means agents can work without the worry of issuing unvalidated tickets and receiving Agent Debit Memos (ADMs) from airlines. For all itineraries, validation covers rules on routings, minimum and maximum stay, and advanced reservations and ticketing requirements. All Galileo users who have PrivateFares contracts for their agencies' fare data will automatically receive the benefit of additional field validations. This means that the many agents who have already loaded fares into Galileo's PrivateFares database do not need to re-enter data for validation to take effect. The benefits of these enhancements are automatically available to them.

This dedicated third-party data entry facility has been specially arranged by Galileo and is exclusive to Galileo travel agency customers. Galileo is therefore offering travel agents a convenient and cost effective new method of inputting private fares data. 

"Galileo is responding to the prevalence in Asia Pacific of 'net airfares' offered by consolidators and airlines to travel agents and corporations, " said Janie Kaung, executive vice president and managing director of Galileo's Asia Pacific region. "PrivateFares and these new enhancements were created to address the fact that up to 80% of all airline ticket sales in Asia Pacific involve non-published fares."

Galileo's PrivateFares initiative brings a range of benefits to travel agents. Integrated validation streamlines an agent's fares search because the only fares displayed are the ones that comply with the rules of a particular itinerary and schedule as requested. This in turn significantly enhances the efficiency of the agent and reduces the chance of the travel agency receiving an ADM from an airline. Galileo's outsourced data entry solution allows agencies to automate their private fares information quickly and painlessly. Taken together, these two enhancements ensure a smoother and more efficient workflow for agents, improving productivity, accuracy and customer service.