The OTDS e.V. experiences a strong growth in membership numbers and users in recent months. On 1st September four more companies joined the association: the tour operators vtours and Adrialin Blue as well as the travel technology specialists a-five and TourOne Systems.
Oliver Rengelshausen, Chairman of OTDS e.V., sees two reasons for the positive development: “On the one hand, many industry participants are realising that OTDS has established itself as a standard that benefits everyone. On the other hand, the OTDS Association modified its membership-fee model at the beginning of the year: The fee is now linked to the size of the company and is therefore more attractive for smaller companies as well.”
In future, the new members will increase the proportion of travel offers in sales delivered in OTDS and ensure professional production on the basis of the Open Travel Data Standard:
Since its foundation in 2004, vtours GmbH has been able to establish itself on the German market from a start-up to a renowned tour operator within a short period of time and is today one of the leading companies in the industry on the German-speaking market. By constant advancement and IT innovations with lean processes the company shapes the dynamic production of package tours considerably and functions also as a service provider in this range. The portfolio currently comprises approx. 6,000 hotels in 195 destinations worldwide which in the future shall be transmitted to the sales channels preferably in OTDS format with even leaner production processes and significantly improved data quality.
Adrialin Blue GmbH is a sister company of Adrialin GmbH, Europe’s largest special tour operator for holiday accommodation in Croatia. As a dynamic packager, Adrialin Blue offers package tours to Croatia and other popular destinations, which will soon also be searchable and bookable for OTAs and stationary travel agencies via the Traveltainment systems. Adrialin Blue GmbH will integrate its offers into these systems in line with market standards and will use OTDS as the data format.
a-five GmbH, solution provider from Brühl near Cologne, offers B2B software solutions for tourism service providers. COO Michael Aubermann is convinced of open standards, which is why a-five actively supports the dissemination and use of the OTDS data format: The “Offer Inspector” test platform enables OTDS data suppliers to achieve success and monitor results more quickly. Solutions for processors of OTDS, conversion services and the virtualization of sales channels round off a-five’s OTDS portfolio.
As motives for joining the association, Aubermann mentions the ideal importance of the broadest possible and thus independent support of the format, as well as the possibility of actively influencing further development: “Our membership is a clear commitment to an open data format, combined with the greatest possible investment protection for our customers.”
TourOne Systems GmbH from Hersbruck will offer its tour operator product in its new version “TourOne 3.0” based on OTDS. This means that the performance spectrum of the new version will include the option of OTDS export. The aim of the new managing director Christian Feldmann is to provide tour operator customers with higher productivity with further automated processes and optimised data quality. An important customer of TourOne Systems is Chamäleon and its sister brand Yolo Reisen.