Driving force

Reporting on the technological innovations pushing the industry forward, Bob Papworth gets a glimpse of the future

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Ford Nucleon, the only remaining mock-up of which sits in the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. It's a sad reminder of what happens when boffins cross that thin dividing line between 'brilliant' and 'bonkers'.

The Nucleon, which never made it past the concept stage, was intended to be the world's first nuclear-powered car. A mini-reactor at the rear of the vehicle (as far away from the passengers as possible - about six feet) would enable the car to cover 5,000 miles before its fuel rods needed replacing.

The Nucleon might be an extreme example, but history is littered with inventions that never quite took off, such as the Sinclair C5 and almost anything in an Innovations catalogue.

It is all the more extraordinary, therefore, that the business travel industry, increasingly besotted with hi-tech solutions, has generally managed to avoid the nuttier professors' more hare-brained ideas.

However, as the pace and scope of technological development accelerates, the chances of this happening are increasing all the time - something which HRG (Hogg Robinson Group), among others, appears to have recognised.

In October last year, HRG organised a high-level seminar at Microsoft's Thames Valley UK headquarters to bring together the various strands of techno-development. Chief executive David Radcliffe criticised "disparity" within the industry, and called for a "common platform".

While the principal focus of the event was global distribution system (GDS) content, Paul Saggar, HRG director, technology product development, clearly sees wider implications and possibilities.

"The feedback from that [seminar] has been absolutely brilliant," he says. "We set up a website so that attendees could stay in touch, and from that we have started to work closely with a couple of key suppliers. We have got to take into consideration the current climate, which has affected pretty much everyone. At the moment the emphasis is very much on cost containment so if we have open dialogue discussions between suppliers then we will be able to deliver something that is going to add value, at a price that is acceptable to all of us - suppliers, TMCs [travel management companies], and clients."

Already, Saggar says, seminar participants - and the companies they represent - are starting to work towards common goals.

"Innovation is still moving forward, but it is now focused in key areas," he says. "Probably five out of every six of our key customers are talking about pre-trip processes - why people are travelling, where they're going, and whether there is a travel alternative. People are looking for more innovative solutions for pre-trip approvals."

Another key element of this brave new techno-future is integration. "Many of our larger clients have their own existing systems for expenses, and procurement systems for buying stationery and so on, and they are looking for us to integrate into their systems," says Saggar.

"When we make a booking for a client, regardless of whether that is done online or offline, they want that booking to end up in their own existing systems. It allows our clients to go back to their own companies and demonstrate the return on investment. It gives them the chance to say: 'I told you so.'"

Integration rings bells with Gary Hance, too. Chief operating officer with ATP - The Advanced Travel Partner, he is keen to persuade clients to use his company's Ticket Window and Corporate Traveller products. "But we also offer Amadeus e-Travel to other clients, and would have to support other tools if a client demanded them," he says. "Agents often have to adopt multiple online tools."

On the subject of ATP's products, Hance highlights another area of potential concern. With a few notable exceptions - Evolvi being the exemplar - new travel technologies are developed by technology, rather than travel, companies. "Agents are unlikely to create the next big thing - it'll take too much money, and agents don't make enough as it is," he says. "When ATP, in its Seaforth's incarnation, wrote Ticket Window more than 10 years ago, we had no idea how much it would cost and how long it would take. If we had - well, it might not have happened."

It's not just about money, either. Simon McLean, managing director of hi-tech travel management company Click Travel, says: "I don't think your traditional travel agent has a good understanding of the technology they use, so I don't think they are becoming drivers of change. The ground-breaking stuff tends to come from the technology companies."

When travel management companies do get involved, he says, the focus is usually on the airline side of the business - the hotel and rail sectors are left to play second fiddle.

That said, at Click Travel, the development techies sit in the midst of the reservations team, "and they get shouted at", says McLean. Spurred - or scared - into action, the techno-team then sets about addressing travel-specific requirements.

"I am forever getting nagged by my chairman about development costs," McLean admits, "so yes, it is an issue. However, we make sure we stay in the black, and as long as we do that, we can continue to spend on the development side."

The thorny question of technology costs has an impact on other areas of travel, too. ATP's Hance predicts: "Security machines which can differentiate between threatening and non-threatening liquids are already being deployed at airports, which means that unpacking your laptop and removing your shoes and belt should become a thing of the past."

However, he adds: "Because of the vast investment involved [in developing the equipment in the first place] it's a moot point as to whether many airports will actually be able to afford these clever pieces of kit."

And some pieces of kit, just to add to the confusion, are simply too clever by half. The classic example is the extension of mobile communications systems to the aircraft cabin. It is now perfectly possible not just to send and receive emails and text messages from one's Business Class seat, but to make and receive phone calls, too.

Unfortunately, nobody told the developers - and they didn't think to ask - that there is considerable consumer resistance to the prospect of sitting next to the sort of inconsiderate crashing bores who now infest the nation's trains.

Most airlines have flipped the switch and refused to enable voice-calls, in the process flushing a vast tranche of research and development money away.

Similarly, Hance used to subscribe to a text service that promised to alert him if his flight was delayed. The phrase 'used to' is relevant because the people behind the system hadn't paused to consider whether he might not want to be alerted - at 3.20am in the morning - that there was nothing wrong with his flight.

As McLean points out, his own super-sophisticated mobile theoretically enables him to make a complex multi-sector trip booking - but would he trust it to do so? He'd rather ring the office (infinitely quicker and easier) and have them do it for him, regardless of the fact that the technology probably would work.

That said, Gary Hance does believe that mobile technology is the most immediate way forward. "I am certain that in the next year or so we will have universal recognition of boarding card information from mobile technology," he says. "Either the phone will be able to display the barcode or, more likely, the phone itself will be recognised - you won't even have to take it out of your pocket."

HRG's Saggar goes a stage further, suggesting barcode e-tickets will quickly become commonplace.

Back in the office, the experts say the global distribution systems - the most obvious manifestation of technology's role within the business travel industry - will continue to compete on content.

Marry that to policy engines which force bookers to go for approved options, and compliance goes through the roof but, at the same time, greater content allows for more accurate benchmarking and, by extension, tougher negotiating positions.

At Click, the much-harangued techno-team have started to look at the travel possibilities of Twitter and similar micro-blogging sites - in what McLean describes as "a sort of advanced SMS" - on the basis that if it's good enough for Barack Obama, it's probably good enough for a Birmingham-based travel management company.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has decided to make a video star of HRG's Paul Saggar, featuring him - and his employers - in a video case study recognising "HRG's use of SOA [service oriented architecture] technology".

According to HRG: "The SOA approach has been used to create a truly flexible platform, HRG Universal Super Platform [USP], which enables replacement of multiple disparate systems worldwide and can be broken down into plug and play blocks, each of which can work independently or in harmony.

"Building the platform in this way has increased speed to market, driven efficiencies and greatly enhanced customer service. It is scaleable and manageable on a global basis, handling large amounts of data and capable of easily integrating automated processes and human workflow seamlessly."

Using SOA within the USP, he says, is all about "delivering value". That bit, at least, we can all understand. Click Travel's McLean, goes one step further. "Personally," he says with a smile, "I am always watching those teleportation systems - that would be wonderful.

I think that's the future, the one to watch. Then again, I quite like the Tardis idea." As long as he doesn't go back to re-invent the Ford Nucleon.

BIG BANG !
	3,500BC Probable date of the oldest surviving wheel, found in what was Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq)
	43AD Disgusted with Britain's haphazard web of muddy tracks, conquering Romans start to build proper roads
	1804 Cornishman Richard Trevithick's steam-powered 'tram road engine' takes to the rails. The first passenger service, on the Stockton & Darlington Railway, was launched in 1825
	1834 Charles Babbage dreams up the 'analytical engine', the forerunner of today's computer. Precision engineering was too imprecise to build one before he died in 1871
	1916 Mass production pioneer Henry Ford cut the price of the Model T to US$360, making motoring affordable. The first section of the M1 opened in 1959; the M25 was completed in 1986
	1939 The jet-powered Heinkel HE 178 takes to the skies, two years after Frank Whittle built the first viable jet engine
	1969 The first message ever to be sent over the ARPANET, the forerunner of the modern internet
	1973 Martin Cooper makes the first ever wireless (mobile) phone call from a New York street corner