Lotus Tours Launches Interactive Booking Capability

One of Hong Kong's best-known travel agents, Lotus Tours, has launched an interactive booking capability for Travpulse, its proprietary wholesale distribution platform powered by Galileo.

When Lotus Tours rolled out its Travpulse B2B network in January 2002, it initially provided information on air and package holidays. At a seminar for 150 local travel agents, held November at the Sheraton Hong Kong, Lotus formally announced that Travpulse now offers booking with real-time confirmation for air and package holidays as well as ad hoc promotions on a range of related travel products.

Lotus built Travpulse utilizing Galileo's easy-to-use XML Select™ interface and provides the wholesale distribution service to agencies free of charge. In 2003, Travpulse will expand to include information and bookings for hotels.

"Wholesale is an important part of our overall portfolio of businesses and we are delighted that Travpulse is now successfully providing real-time booking to the travel agency community in Hong Kong," said Patrick Kong, Managing Director, Lotus Tours Limited. "Galileo helped us create this new B2B service by providing the Travpulse booking engine. They also proved to be an invaluable resource at both a technical level and in terms of their travel industry knowledge."

"XML Select is part of a range of online tools we use to make the power of Galileo available to our customers," said Janie Kaung, executive vice president and managing director of Galileo's Asia Pacific region. "Automated booking is a proven way of attracting a much broader base of customers and we are delighted that Lotus Tours decided to work with us to implement this important distribution tool for their wholesale operations."

Galileo's XML Select supports web-based booking engines as well as server-based applications. It is an ideal vehicle for travel agents who wish to give their own customers the freedom to book online in the "look and feel" they want them to see. XML Select lets travel agents connect to the Galileo® system and work with the Galileo database no matter what type of end result they require.