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| Sunday, 5 February 2006 |
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Business |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Travel Abacus to set new travel trends by Elmo Leonard
Eminent corporate personality and Abacus International, president Don Birch was in Colombo last week, with a commitment to setting new travel trends and technologies, in place, here. These trends, will shape the future of travel in Sri Lanka and make most of the growing regional travel, the media was told. Travellers today, have more choices than earlier. But, more travellers and more services mean more complexity. So, 11 of the most profitable airlines in Asia Pacific calls itself, Abacus International Holdings and Sabre. Bases in Singapore, it is the largest Global Distribution System (GDS) provider in Asia Pacific providing comprehensive travel information and Computerised Reservation System (CRS). All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, DragonAir, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Malaysia Airlines, Philippines Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, Silk Air and Singapore Airlines own 65 percent of Abacus International.
The local Abacus currently provides solutions and services to over 30 percent of the local market with plans to grow further in 2006, Karunaratne said. As part of its leadership role in the local market, Abacus is constantly upgrading and reinventing its product offerings to the customers. Abacus recently embarked on migrating to an IP platform for all of its agents, and the target completion of the migration to IP is by March 2006, Karunaratne said. Another step is the support provided by Abacus Lanka through the Abacus Rebuilding Tourism Livelihoods Scheme which provides assistance to grass roots organisations to help the local population rebuild their lives, business and the tourism industry in general. The Ruhunu Hospital in Galle, Sri Lanka is one such. Abacus had earlier contributed S$25,000 to the hospital as part of its post-tsunami relief efforts in 2005, Karunaratne said. Travel bookings to Sri Lanka initially affected by the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 have shown strong signs of recovery over the past six months, Desiree Karunaratne, General Manager, Abacus International Lanka (Pvt) Ltd said. The Sri Lanka Tourism Board predicted a strong growth during the year, with travel projections indicating visitor arrivals will exceed 500,000 for the third consecutive year. Abacus is similarly optimistic about the growth, forecasting that the Sri Lanka travel industry will achieve around 8.5 percent growth in 2006. Economists predict real GDP growth in 2006 will be 5.6 percent, travel growth is 1.5xGDP growth. Compared to the predicted Asia travel growth of 4 to 6 percent, Sri Lanka may emerge as one of the highest tourism growth contributors for Asia-Pacific, Birch said. Elsewhere in the region, the travel industry is set to grow steadily as it tracks the general rise in economic growth, Birch said. Sri Lanka needs strong centrally coordinated leadership and a willingness among the industry to continue to work together and pitch in, Birch said. There was tremendous support from the region and in the region last year. But, there is still much to be done to ensure Sri Lanka's survival in the long term, Birch said. Playing its part, Abacus has been actively shaping the future of Sri Lanka travel and tourism by setting key trends and providing leading-edge technology, Abacus Lanka, Managing Director, Ashok Pathirage said. One such initiative in the travel industry includes assisting the International Air Travel Association (IATA) to transition all Abacus- connected travel agents to Bank Settlement Plan (BSP) ahead of schedule. By April 2006 it is mandatory for all IATA accredited agents to join BSP, as BSP is the first step required to ensuring the infrastructure is set up to achieve e-ticketing for the entire travel industry by 2007 as set by IATA. In July last year, BSP commenced its pilot operations in Sri Lanka with a select number of carriers and travel agents, with more travel agents and BSP carriers due to join transition by April 2006, Pathirage said. Cathay Pacific 'Airline of the year 2006' Cathay Pacific marked an auspicious start to the Chinese New Year and the airline's 60th anniversary as it was named 'Airline of the Year 2006' by Air Transport World (ATW) magazine, the leading monthly magazine covering the global aviation industry. US-based ATW said the airline of Hong Kong "is respected and admired among peers for its unwavering commitment to safety, technical excellence and customer service". ATW's annual industry awards were created in 1974 to recognise excellence and have become one of the most prestigious and valued honours that a company or a person in the airline industry can receive. One airline executive was quoted as saying, "it is like winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games!" Austrian Airlines to fly to Iraq Austrian Airlines is scheduled to commence thrice weekly operations to the City of Erbil in Northern Iraq, from the beginning of next month. Austrian Airlines Group will become the first European carrier to be granted the right to operate scheduled services into Iraq. Effective March 12 Austrian Airlines will operate this service twice a week during March and April, and three times a week from May using an Airbus A319. Austrian Management Board Member Dr. Josef E. Burger speaking of this new destination in Iraq said: 'Erbil is truly a milestone in the development of the Austrian route network. Once again, it will allow us to underline our pioneering role and specialisation in the form of our "Focus East" program of services to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the far East. With our flights to Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Syria and the United Arab
Emirates, we are already the number three carrier in Europe when measured by
services into the Middle East. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
Sabre Inc, the largest GDS in America and a leader in the electronic
distribution of travel and travel related services formed a strategic
alliance with Abacus in 1998 by taking a 35 percent equity investment in
Abacus. 
