OpenJaw Technologies, a subsidiary of TravelSky Technologies, welcomes hundreds of attendees at its annual China Travel Summit held this year in Dalian, China. Over 250 attendees attended the one-day conference, including 30+ Chinese airlines.
OpenJaw Technologies CEO, Kieron Branagan said: "OpenJaw believes that retailing is fuelling a revolution in how travel is purchased in China. The China Travel Summit is the place where Chinese airlines learn about cutting-edge strategies, tools and techniques about travel retailing, and we are delighted to announce lots of new initiatives for Chinese airlines at the China Travel Summit."
New Customers in China
OpenJaw announced two new Chinese customers, Chengdu Airlines and Tibet Airlines, as well as strong momentum in 2018 in China with two Chinese airline customers going live this year – Hong Kong Airlines and China United Airlines.
Kieron Branagan, CEO, OpenJaw Technologies, said of the new customer wins: "The OpenJaw t-Retail platform is gaining significant traction in the world’s fastest growing and largest travel market – China. Signing two new Chinese airlines in succession and delivering two live customers in 2018 (Hong Kong Airlines and China United Airlines) demonstrates why OpenJaw is among the fastest growing travel technology vendors in the world. We now have eight carriers using t-Retail in China and are poised to add more airlines to our portfolio."
New Hires in China
OpenJaw now has over 50 staff in the new Dalian office in China, formally opened in December 2017. OpenJaw is in the process of doubling the workforce in China.
OpenJaw Technologies CEO, Kieron Branagan said: "We are pleased to announce that the plans to double our workforce in China to over 100 employees in the next year."
Licensed OpenSearch Fare Shopping Engine from TravelSky
OpenJaw has partnered with TravelSky to launch OpenJaw OpenSearch, a search and shopping engine with functionality that includes calendar and flexible search, fare pricing, availability, taxes, surcharges and schedule capabilities.
OpenJaw has licensed OpenSearch from TravelSky for use in the international market. OpenSearch is a modern ultra-high performance fare shopping engine that has been extensively deployed within major airlines and OTAs in the Chinese travel market, for example, China Southern, China Eastern and Hong Kong Airlines.
"OpenSearch is an impressive addition to the range of fare shopping engines that the t-Retail Platform already supports. With this licensing deal, OpenJaw is delighted to bring more choices to airlines, loyalty programmes and OTAs seeking an industry leading price/performance ratio for fare shopping.’ said Liyan Zhao, VP China Operations, OpenJaw Technologies. ‘OpenSearch provides substantial economic benefits and is particularly applicable to high-volume search environments with high look-to-book ratios, for example, metasearch and NDC environments. With OpenSearch, OpenJaw solidifies its position as the most fully featured travel retailing solution available."
OpenJaw t-Data Platform
The OpenJaw t-Data Platform is now generally available after a number of months in public beta for Chinese airlines. t-Data delivers end-to-end personalized retailing, on demand and in the cloud, and empowers Chinese airlines to successfully retail, distribute and fulfill across all customer touchpoints. ‘Big Data’ has disrupted travel retailing in China. In the past Chinese airlines could only segment customer by basic information such as date of travel and passenger mix. Today, travel retailers collect information from multiple sources on their customers. Crunching this vast amount of data in an economic and scalable way enables travel retailers to not just segment customers better, but also to provide a personalized experience to each customer.
"Personalisation is now seen as essential to the success of Chinese airlines. Chinese customers expect brands to identify their preferences and build a tailored shopping experience around them," said Dr. John Carney, Chief Data Scientist at OpenJaw Technologies.
"Yet airlines often lack the infrastructure and data science skills necessary to deliver effective personalized content throughout the customer journey. With the OpenJaw t-Data Platform, we have solved the most difficult and complex piece of the personalization puzzle for Chinese Airlines. Today, we can help travel retailers create individualized experiences on demand for their customers wherever and whenever they engage."
OpenJaw t-Social Platform
The OpenJaw t-Social Platform is now generally available. t-Social automates customer engagement, captures additional revenue and reduces costs for travel retailers - using the power of Artificial Intelligence. The platform fuses social messaging platforms (Facebook Messenger, WeChat, WhatsApp) together with cognitive computing platforms (such as IBM Watson) to deliver customer servicing and selling at scale through automation. Messaging platforms such as WeChat generating 230+ billion messages per day.
"The sheer number of messages being generated every day and the convenience for customers to remain within their social media platforms makes a compelling business case for using the t-Social Platform’, said Brian Lewis, Chief Technology Officer, OpenJaw Technologies. ‘Creating real conversations and human interactions for customers powered by Artificial Intelligence using social messaging platforms enables true customer centricity and enhances cost efficiencies for any Chinese Airline."
