BroadVision, a leading provider of enterprise self-service applications, and e-Travel, a business unit of Amadeus, have introduced a new major version of BroadVision e-Travel.
The companies said this is the first software application of its kind to offer the travel industry integrated support for leisure, managed and unmanaged travel markets with a new J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) framework.

The announcement from Broadvision and e-Travel said that as the online travel market has grown, there is an increasing emphasis on the corporate travel market. The percentage of corporate travel bookings made online is predicted to more than double from its present level to 20.3% in 2003. With a 37% compound annual growth rate predicted through 2003, the corporate or “managed travel” market is a key growth area in the online travel industry as a whole, according to a report by travel analysts at PhoCusWright.

“Adding to our e-Travel booking solutions, BroadVision e-Travel represents the first personalized solution that addresses the industry`s move towards servicing the needs of both managed and unmanaged travelers,” said Jér™me Destors, Director, Suppliers and Agencies for e-Travel. “This new major version will allow travel suppliers and agencies to be more successful by securing their return-on-investment, capturing new market opportunities, and increasing conversion rates for leisure markets and adoption rates in servicing corporations.”

Building on the travel booking features of the previous version of the solution,  which has been selected to power online travel sites including Iberia airlines, European travel portal Opodo and online travel agency Travellink, BroadVision e-Travel 6.0 adds built-in support for the management and administration of corporate travel policies, Destors said.

BroadVision e-Travel has been developed to best meet the needs of travel industry suppliers, travel agencies, and corporations. Each of these three market segments can benefit greatly from the ability to service both business and leisure travel customers using a comprehensive single application fully integrated with a single e-commerce platform.

“The previous generation of our travel product has been well received by travel providers because of its scalability, advanced personalization and features tailored for the leisure travel industry,” said Chris Grejtak, chief marketing officer for BroadVision. “BroadVision e-Travel 6.0 is designed to appeal to an even broader market, including current BroadVision customers who want to add corporate travel policy management to their existing employee portal initiatives.”

He added that new features in BroadVision e-Travel 6.0 make it an ideal choice for companies that want to provide employees with self-service access to online travel booking while automating the management and enforcement of corporate travel policies. For example, selected employees can receive targeted alerts through their employee portal allowing them to book a pre-built trip within seconds.

The two companies also said that BroadVision e-Travel provides all the travel booking features that leisure travel sites need in order to provide online travel offers, including support for special offers, an integrated shopping cart, and a unified checkout and payment process. BroadVision e-Travel can also be internationalized in 21 languages and five character sets and offers multi-currency features for market-specific localization.

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