Accommodation provider Seligo has stated that it has gone live with TORIX.

Published: 11 Sep 2005

Accommodation provider Seligo has stated that it has gone live with TORIX.

As per the information available, the company is using TORIX to connect
its reservation system with the web portals of Teletext Holidays and
travelsupermarket.com. This will allow visitors to the two Web portals
to search for live availability and to book Seligo's accommodation in
real-time.

With TORIX, Seligo is focusing on enhancing the efficiency of its
business whilst exploiting new online channels. The company has been
able to drop one of its two viewdata feeds as it scales back its
connectivity to this legacy technology.

The company said other clients are in the final stages of testing with a
view to going live within the next few weeks.

Information Systems Manager, Peter Barnsley, said, "Viewdata is dying,
it just needs a little shove to be completely killed off!" Barnsley has
offered to give advice to other TTI members that are working on
implementing TORIX, according the company. On TORIX, a statement says,
"(It stands for) Tour Operator Reservations in XML. Many predict that
the creation of this new standard heralds the death of Viewdata. It is
designed to overcome that ancient technology's severe limitations,
providing a standard set of messages for passing descriptive and booking
data."

It is being said that TORIX will allow tour operators to trade
electronically via third parties in an efficient manner which has simply
not been possible with Viewdata, whether these third parties are high
street travel agents or online intermediaries. "It will offer travel
agents a more sophisticated way of booking tour operator products.
Whereas Viewdata has always been limited by its screen display, TORIX
will allow tour operators to provide travel agency systems with
comprehensive product information and sophisticated bookability," says
a release.

An official release also stated that there has been strong support for
TORIX across the industry with 65 copies of the specification having
been downloaded from TTI's Web site (www.tti.org )
since the standard's launch.

TORIX has been developed under the auspices the TTI (Travel Technology
Initiative),formed to develop common technology standards for the UK
travel industry making it easier for agents and suppliers to communicate
with each other.