The forum communicated to attending media and industry leaders how the major players will cooperate to adopt and drive open standards to create the most efficient business practices.  

With specifications from both OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) and AH&MA�s Hospitality Industry Technology Integration Standards (HITIS), Advisory Committee an Internet commerce trade exchange will span suppliers and markets throughout the hospitality industry.  
  

The forum�s backdrop was the growing requirement to keep the hospitality community informed of opportunities presented by common standards for content and messaging.   �The hotel industry is more dependent on information than most. With the prospect of agreement on how to format hotel data so it can be used for different purposes, in different markets, there�s a huge opportunity to improve its quality and reduce the

Participants in Newmarket�s Forum to Accelerate E-Commerce Standards in Hospitality Industry held during HITEC in Dallas in June.  Seated (left to right): Eric Orkin, President, Opus 2 Revenue Technologies; Gary Cooke, Hospitality Industry Manager, Microsoft Corp.; Steve Giblin, President & CEO, Newmarket International; Brian Garavuso, VP of Information Technology, MeriStar Hotels & Resorts; Bob Elliott, VP of Engineering Codes & Standards, HITIS.  Standing (left to right): Nick Lanyon, Chairman, Lanyon, Inc.; Ed Rubinstein, Editor, Hospitality Technology; John Lavin, President & COO of StarCite; Rodd Herron, VP of Sales Development for Wyndham International; Boro Petrovic, VP of OPERA Development Group, Micros/Fidelio.

"Now that HITIS has completed the extension of our Phase I standards to XML, we are eager to see the industry implement standard content and messaging industry-wide,� said Bob Elliott of the HITIS Advisory Committee.  �With XML as the common denominator, each participant in this vast industry can adapt to the standard depending on where each fits in the market.  I am pleased that HITIS and the OTA are now committed to working together to develop one common standard for reservation booking in the travel industry"
 
�The standards are being set, the road has been opened; XML is the way,� said Steve Giblin.  �Our use of XML for lead exchange among our publishing partners and Newmarket customers has verified how quickly existing systems can interface and adapt to emerging solutions.�

Newmarket created MeetingBroker.com, which now serves as a testimonial to the capabilities of XML and open standards, and which will enable Newmarket to contribute effectively to further developments in HITIS and OTA standards.  

"MeetingBroker.com is creating an electronic trading community and generating momentum through partnerships and open standards, a fundamental component of our BizTalk initiative," said Gary Cooke, hospitality industry manager at Microsoft Corp.   �Microsoft is excited to be working with Newmarket to develop e-commerce-enabling technologies that meet the growing needs of hospitality professionals.�

Now in its second year of existence, the OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) boasts membership of over 120 companies, including travel industry vertical members from air, hotel, car, and leisure.  Newmarket International is one of many �non-supplier� members, representatives who will develop and deliver solutions based on the standards.

AH&MA�s HITIS has been at work for several years developing interchange formats to link hotels� front office, back office and central reservations systems to share information in a common format.  Both OTA and HITIS have selected XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as the data transfer format which makes technology development and maintenance easiest.  

�The use of XML was a foregone conclusion� said Eric Blonda, Newmarket International�s representative to the OTA.  �An XML specification allows technology providers the opportunity to extend on certain facets of the standard to meet their customers� needs while remaining standardized and interoperable.  The challenge now is to understand as an industry all the use-cases and content definitions that will allow us to involve as many services as possible.�
 
One Technology for Many Markets 

A major focus of the forum was how e-commerce is transforming both the technological and sales infrastructures of the industry, based on a need to immediately access data across global networks.  

�Hotel corporations today must reengineer their IT departments from the Web down and across the enterprise,� said Brian Garavuso.  �Clustering has created new opportunities and challenges; open systems are necessary to augment a salesperson�s ability to access information in the myriad of ways now available, from global databases to palm-top devices.�  

One of the strongest factors propelling open systems is the rise of electronic Requests For Proposals and the race among a growing number of e-RFP Web sites to provide the most effective conduit between meeting planners and hotels.  

StarCite, which was launched in November 1999, is among the leaders in this growing area of e-commerce.  �As soon as e-commerce became a reality, vast amounts of hotel bookings instantly migrated to the Web,� said John Lavin, President of StarCite, Inc.  �As standards lead to further interconnection between systems and applications, hotels will find tremendous opportunity in using the Internet to simultaneously enhance sales and customer service.�  

The e-Hotel

For hotels, the development of �broker technology� to facilitate the routing of pre-qualified leads is becoming more crucial each day.  Wyndham International became the first major chain to install MeetingBroker.com in order to more efficiently provide Web-based leads to key meeting destinations.  

�Technology that ties hotels more tightly into the RFP process will mean faster response, which will simultaneously improve sales and customer service,� said Rodd Herron, Wyndham�s VP of Sales Development.  �MeetingBroker.com driving the creation of one standard e-RFP will greatly enhance efficiency throughout the industry.�  

Pre-Qualified Gains

Eric Orkin, President of Opus 2 Revenue Technologies, feels Open Standards will expand the process of pre-yield qualification of leads to new levels of usefulness for hotels.  

�I think individual hotels and corporations will benefit from Open Standards by being able to analyze forecast demand with more accuracy and at a much earlier point in the sales process,� Orkin said.  �This revolutionizes our ability to yield fully unconstrained demand, and extends our capabilities to do yield assessment for both transient and group business across multiple properties or even an entire city.�  

New Power to the Planner

Open Standards give new power to meeting planners.  The meeting planner becomes the driving force in a new economy as the Internet affords transparent access to all suppliers.  Vertical hubs like MeetingBroker.com give planners a quick pick of many hotels and the ability to demand the best price for the right product.  

Newmarket International provides software and e-commerce solutions that automate sales and operations for every type of hospitality venue, from independent hotels of any size to resorts, casinos, convention centers, convention & visitors bureaus, and the complete corporate enterprise.