Ease-of-use features and speed-to-market benefits highlight HITEC Houston 2018 Tech Talk

Austin, TX, USA – (July 11, 2018) – The OpenTravel Alliance, the not-for-profit responsible for developing and maintaining interoperability for disparate systems in all verticals of the travel industry, hosted a Tech Talk workshop on the release of the 2.0 Object Model for attendees June 21 at the HITEC® Houston 2018 trade show and conference in Houston.

Tech Talk speakers included technical and business leaders from across the spectrum of travel verticals. Attendees represented developers, technology consultants and business executives seeking more advanced software tools to power their company and client APIs and distribution partnerships.

OpenTravel’s Tech Talk was co-located at HITEC Houston 2018 – a gathering of hospitality technology and financial experts, technology vendors and thought leaders – that is produced by HFTP® (Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals). HFTP invites a variety of trade organizations and businesses to present new technology products and practices at Tech Talks for HITEC attendees.

Presenting at the OpenTravel session about the 2.0 Object Model were:

  • Sandy Angel, Director of Specifications, who provided an overview of 2.0 as a model used to design reusable information objects in libraries housed in a repository to share and reuse libraries of objects; also, the OpenTravel Model-Development Environment (OTM-DE) as a tool to speed development and produce JSON and XML schemas from the 2.0 object model.
  • David Velasquez, SVP Technology and Distribution, LinksRez, and a member of OpenTravel, who shared his experience implementing the 2.0 Object Model and building business partnerships with increased speed to market.
  • Matt Blackmon, Client Solutions Architect, Switchfly, and board member of OpenTravel, who shared compelling examples of how 2.0 facilitates innovation by rapid deployment of APIs with affiliates.
  • Andrew Rubinacci, former SVP, InterContinental Hotels Group, who discussed the importance of standards in product development and marketing new hotel products.
  • Buddy Altus, VP Innovation, Avis Budget Group and Vice Chairman of OpenTravel, who shared how standards like 2.0 enable and grow competitive advantage among business partners.
  • Gene Quinn, Co-founder and former CEO, Tnooz and former Chairman, Phocuswright, moderated the session.

For more information about OpenTravel’s 2.0 Object Model, email [email protected] or visit www.opentravel.org/join