However, what happens if even one bit of the technology fails to work – even if it’s only the carpark barrier? One can waste an awful lot of time shouting into a crackly intercom to an unsympathetic attendant who may or may not believe a word you’re saying. In short, if only one bit goes pear- shaped, all the other bits will be imperilled, too. And, despite all the reassurances from technophiles the world over, things do indeed go pear-shaped, and not infrequently – as Will Hasler, business travel manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, readily confirms. “There are certainly many points of
failure in a technology-driven travel world, and you can mitigate against – but never completely prevent – such issues with service level agreements [SLAs],” he says. “I’ve seen the GDSs [global distribution systems] go down just a few times in the seven or so years I’ve been here. We coped, but a day’s outage and beyond would have been tricky.
“Our self-booking tool is down periodically, but people can use the travel management company [TMC]. In fact, links to low-cost carriers from the SBT are generally pretty hit-and- miss and people have to use the TMC, but then the TMC’s phones are down periodically, as is Trainline, which we and the TMC use to book rail.” The tale of woe goes on. “The GDS is the biggest concern as it drives online and offline bookings, although they do have back-up servers if one gets knocked out,” says Hasler. “They also house them in extremely secure facilities.”
“In short, there are all sorts
of system and phone outages that do happen periodically during a business day – but they rarely all happen simultaneously, alternatives are available, and outages are usually short enough not to be too inconvenient. “Bigger issues for us are when a supplier loads a new release and it hasn’t been tested effectively, knocking out other systems.”
NETWORK / NOT WORK If anything, Simone Buckley, chief executive of the Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM), is even more candid. On a recent trip to Washington, she loaded the name, address and contact details of her hotel, and the name and contact details of the people she was supposed to be meeting, on to her iPhone. It was only when she was on the transatlantic flight that she realised that, if the networks went down, she would have no idea where she was going or who she was meeting. “I would have ended up plugging small change into a payphone to call home,” she admits – although, perhaps mercifully for those at home, the necessity didn’t arise.
Despite all the reassurances from technophiles the world over, things do indeed go pear- shaped – and not infrequently
Buckley does, however, highlight another issue: when technology fails, where does the responsibility lie? One leading buyer told her: “I look after travel – that kind of stuff sits with IT.” Similarly, the ITM’s request-
for-proposal toolkits ask TMCs to ensure their technologies are fit for purpose. “Buyers tend to place responsibility for most of the stuff that comes through a managed travel programme on the TMC – and that’s a very good reason to have a TMC in the first place,” Buckley says. “If you don’t have them making sure that all the systems are up and running, you’d have to do all that yourself.” Of course, that rather pre- supposes that the TMC is, or can be, in control – something about which Eric Bailey, Seattle-based senior travel manager at Microsoft, has grave doubts.
Describing the notion of a
technological apocalypse as “an interesting idea”, he says: “Obviously
the GDSs are a big part of this as they are consolidating all the relevant data. The other big issue is air traffic control. I believe they are still using antiquated technology [radar] but it is quite robust and reliable, whereas aircraft GPS, on the other hand, is subject to satellites, triangulation, and so on.
“One of the big fears around
going over to GPS is that if these satellites were tampered with, the consequences could be huge.” At a rather more humdrum level,
Bailey believes that Microsoft is already pretty secure. “In terms of booking tools and the booking process, we still have a lot of humans working the back end of reservations and we could switch a large portion of