|
===================================================== NEWS BRIEFS: * Booking Sites in the Black ... Orbitz Opposition ... Skip the Phone Call TOP STORY: * A Microchip of One's Own SITE REVIEW: * IndependentTraveler.com NEWS
BRIEFS ORBITZ OPPOSITION: Public debate continues in the wake of the U.S. Department of Transportation's recent decision not to interfere with the impending launch of Orbitz, but at least one opponent of the controversial airline-sponsored booking site has played down the significance of the DOT's April 13 announcement. "Contrary to what Orbitz has said," reads a recent statement from Richard M. Copland, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Agents, "this decision is no green light and certainly no clean bill of health ... DOT has committed to monitor Orbitz and we'll be right there with them." The Justice Department is still conducting its own antitrust review of Orbitz, and some state attorneys general are also investigating the company. SKIP THE PHONE CALL: Travel site Etravnet.com recently announced a partnership with the publishers of the Zagat restaurant guides to provide online reservation services via the site's Rezconnect Web-to-voice platform. Users can now select a restaurant listed in any of Zagat's 39 U.S. city guides and submit a reservation request free of charge by filling out an online form. The request is then fed into a voice synthesizer and forwarded automatically by telephone to the restaurant, which may accept or decline the request using the telephone keypad. The system then relays the restaurant's response back to the user with an e-mail confirmation. TOP
STORY It's only a matter of time before "smart" hotel room keys that can double as credit cards find their way into guests' hands. By Morris Dye During the Internet World Wireless show in New York City two months ago, the Holiday Inn Wall Street hosted a demonstration of a system that enables guests to check in and enter their room without any personal contact with hotel staff. Here's how it works: Upon arriving, guests with a Bluetooth-enabled device are instantly recognized by the hotel's system. They confirm their reservation via the device's wireless application protocol, or WAP, interface, learn their room number, then head directly to the assigned room, where they punch a few numbers into the device to open the door. No key or credit card required, and there's no waiting in line at the front desk. Sound too good to be true? It is, for the time being. Pierre Calmon of lock manufacturer TESA Entry Systems, which developed the prototype with an m-commerce company called Registry Magic, says it's a "concept lock," not yet ready for distribution. But even though that technology is currently unavailable, TESA and other companies are developing a number of other products, including microchip-powered smartcard keys and locks, designed to revolutionize the way guests stay at hotels. In the near future, they say, hotel guests can use these cards to check into hotels at kiosks in the lobby, pay for restaurant tabs and hotel services, and instantly redeem credits for frequent-guest programs. By replacing the familiar magnetic-stripe keys - which are used in roughly two-thirds of the 3.8 million guest rooms in the U.S., according to Hotel & Motel Management magazine - with microchip-powered smart cards, lock manufacturers hope hotel room keys will soon be able to transcend the simple mechanics of unlocking a door. "It's small enough to fit in your wallet," says Elizabeth Lauer, an analyst at the hotel-industry consulting firm HVS International, "And like a personal computer, it can be programmed to serve many different purposes and do many different things." Currently, cost and compatibility are the biggest barriers to widespread acceptance of smartcards. The average price of a microprocessor-equipped card is currently $3.79 - about 20 times the cost of a typical "dumb" magnetic-stripe card, according to the nonprofit trade alliance Smart Card Forum. Empowering a single card for multiple applications - a hotel key that also works as a credit card, telephone card, ATM card and electronic purse - is difficult due to the lack of robust standards for data storage and processing. Despite the current obstacles, TESA has already sold smartcard locks to the venerable Waldorf-Astoria in New York and to the Holiday Inn Wall Street, where TESA's Bluetooth system is currently being tested on the hotel's executive floors. CISA Security Products, a lock manufacturer that began testing smartcard locks in 1997 at Chicago's O'Hare Hilton, has installed a smartcard system for the 2,041-room Hilton New York and Towers. At the massive Venetian Casino Resort in Las Vegas, more than 6,000 rooms have been outfitted with smartcard locks made by a Swedish vendor called TimeLox. Yet virtually all of these first-generation products are dual-format locks - so while hotel staff rely on the smartcards to program and maintain the systems, most guests continue to open their doors with the less-expensive magnetic-stripe cards. For now, smartcards' biggest benefit to hotel guests is enhanced security, not enhanced convenience. But to date, financial services companies like Visa and MasterCard have been driving the growth of smartcard use, particularly in Western Europe, where more than half a billion smart bankcards have been issued. In the U.S., American Express has put its considerable muscle behind the technology, incorporating microprocessors in more than 2 million "Blue" brand credit cards issued last year. So, given the potential for tapping directly into travelers' disposable income, it's probably only a matter of time before you get your hands on a digital room key that doubles as a spending machine. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SITE
REVIEW With big players like Expedia and Travelocity clearly dominating the online travel space these days, prospects might seem dim for a new general-interest travel site. That hasn't stopped the producers of Independent Traveler, a longtime fixture of America Online's travel channel. The site, which launched quietly last month, offers a mix of original editorial content and AOL-style message boards where visitors can post questions, advice and personal travelogues. A Bargain Box section contains extensive listings of discount offers, and a useful Traveler's Resource Center offers consumer tips and links to a wide range of online references. There's a dedicated area for women travelers and a news section featuring updates on airline strikes, weather conditions and other issues that affect the traveling public. Travelocity fields all traffic from prominent Reservations buttons built into the Web site's interface. The site's greatest shortcoming, at this point, is the paucity of posts on its message boards: Except for the three most popular boards, the majority contained only a few messages when we checked recently. Overall, Independent Traveler is an intelligently organized portal for online travel planning - not to mention it has an Airport Adventure game you can play whenever you want to kill some time.
STAFF ===================================================== |
|
|
|