For RCCL’s Fain, onboard art helps differentiate sister ships

The giraffe wearing an inner tube, an art piece next to the climbing wall on Anthem of the Seas.

SOUTHAMPTON, England — Hanging on walls, suspended from ceilings, rising from pedestals and platforms, braving the weather on upper decks and turning stairwells into galleries, art is the singular attribute that defines and separates the personalities of the Anthem of the Seas and its structural twin, the Quantum of the Seas.

An astounding variety of media, from bricks to light bulbs, are employed onboard the Anthem, unified by the theme “What makes life worth living.”

Purchasing art for a cruise ship, it turns out, is a bit more complicated than selecting an oil painting to hang above your sofa.

There are a variety of technical as well as aesthetic considerations. For example, there’s little chance your apartment will list or roll or that the art in your home will be touched by hundreds of people every day for decades.

Or, if it’s kinetic or illuminated, that it will need circuitry beyond what’s specified for typical consumer appliances. (click the Video link to watch the Richard Fains artwork explained)

And your backyard fountain probably isn’t programmed to shut down if the ground tilts beyond a certain angle.

Richard Fain, the chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCCL), said during the Anthem’s pre-inaugural sailing that collectively, the art aboard the company’s ships represents a huge investment. RCCL’s spending on art is in “nine digits,” he said, though he also allowed that art is perhaps the only shipboard procurements that appreciate after purchase.

Most onboard art is acquired with the assistance of a consultancy that specializes in corporate art, though some is commissioned directly from an artist.

Over the years, there have been disappointments, even failures.

In 1987, RCCL commissioned a 9-foot-diameter clock that used tiny glass beads to tinkle, rather than chime, the quarter hour. It was for placement in the Sovereign of the Seas atrium. “I saw it work in the artist’s studio,” Fain said. “It was magnificent.”

And that was the last time he saw it work. The artist spent months tweaking it after it was installed. Engineers were brought in. But tinkling was never again heard.

“The head of [subsidiary] Pullmantur said, ‘I’ll make it work.’” But it was not to be. Today, it keeps time on a Pullmantur ship but still doesn’t function as intended.

When RCCL sells a ship, the art does not go to the buyer; it is removed, and sometimes finds a home aboard another ship.

Fain takes a strong personal interest in the art, and he can give nuanced analyses of various pieces, taking note of color saturation, light, movement, texture, technology, artistic intention and, it turns out, functionality. When he was first shown a catalog detailing the art aboard the Anthem (a catalog that was placed in every stateroom), he paused on the page of a large, illuminated piece and told an executive to check out the installation because “there are four lights out.”

Fain sees a “yin-yang” both in individual pieces and in how the Quantum’s and Anthem’s art varies. While the Quantum’s collection is by no means serious, Fain frequently used  the word “fun” to describe Anthem art. Perhaps the best examples of how the two differ are the choices of statuary on Deck 15, near the rock-climbing walls. The Quantum has a giant magenta bear, holding on to the deck above; not a serious piece, but not as whimsical as the giraffe wearing an inner tube on the Anthem.

During a “Common Ground” session during the sailing, in which Fain and other executives answered questions, one agent stated, “I’m not interested in art — I don’t really have time to be interested in art — but this really opened my eyes.”

Another asked Fain, “Why a giraffe in a swimsuit?”

The curator-in-chief didn’t miss a beat in responding about what is possibly the most surreal object on the ship.

“What else would you have there?” he asked.

Cruise lines modernize photo operations

When Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas made its November debut, almost lost in the crush of technology firsts was the ship's photo gallery, the first all-digital display space at sea.

Quantum guests don't stroll past walls of glossy prints, peering to see which ones might include them. Instead, they check digital monitors, which shorten the hunt for relevant photos.

On the Quantum, images are developed and printed only when guests see a photo they want to keep. 

The system is a leap forward, said Brynley Davies, managing director of the Image Group, the concessionaire for photography on Royal Caribbean's global fleet of 22 ships.

"It sounds very easy to say, 'Do print on request,'" Davies said. "But what you see in the photo gallery and the systems that are running it aren't evolutions of what we've done before. We started a complete rebuild three years ago, so this is a completely different architecture."

In fact, he said, it is built on "a very, very sophisticated set of computer systems, programs and hardware that are all aligned and integrated with Royal Caribbean systems to make it work effectively."

Across the industry, cruise lines are dashing to keep up with digitization of photography, which has brought sweeping changes to the way people take and store images.

A customer on Royal Caribbean International's Quantum of the Seas chooses photos with the Image Group's Li Jing. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst

On land, it spelled the end of everything from Kodachrome film to Polaroid cameras and one-hour photo shops. At sea, it promises to slash the amount of wasted paper and chemicals used in cruise photo operations and do away with the ubiquitous floor-to-ceiling photo display wall.

The transition to digital is happening as fast as cruise lines can figure out how to do it properly. 

Old gives way to new

Every major cruise line has a mix of advanced and legacy photo systems, ranging from the all-digital vanguard on the Quantum to the traditional print-everything model on many older ships.

But digital will eventually rule because it offers benefits to every cruise photo operation, and consumers are comfortable with it.

"What we see is a fundamental shift," Davies said. "We've been [doing trials of] these new technologies on another ship. What we saw there was a shift away from print toward buying digital images. We see that trend continuing."

If for no other reason, cruise lines would embrace digital because of the growing size of new ships.

Photo managers say it has become increasingly difficult to display on a wall all of the images on ships that are carrying between 3,000 and 5,000 passengers each week. Some cruise lines had begun to adopt a folder system to cut down on the need for display space.

Going digital simplifies the photo search process and frees a wall's square footage for other uses. The photo gallery on the Quantum is 50% smaller than a traditional one on a ship of comparable size, Davies said.

A second benefit of going digital can be found in the print savings, both economic and environmental.

Ecofriendly bonus

Although he didn't quantify the amount, Davies said the fully on the Quantum will use much less photographic paper. Many of the prints in a traditional photo concession aren't even viewed if the guest has no desire to buy photos. Henceforth, none of those images will be printed.

Guests of the Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas can use their WOWbands in the Focus Photo Gallery to digitally access and print on demand their professionally taken photographs, significantly reducing preprinted photo waste.

The classic print process also requires photo chemicals that produce "a waste stream that has to be removed from the ship and disposed of in an environmentally safe manner," Davies said.

On the Quantum, instead of wet-processing, Image Group uses a dry-process inkjet printer, an industrial-grade version of the printer technology that many consumers have in their home or office.

"It produces absolutely no photo waste at all," Davies said. "There's a much-reduced environmental impact."

The Quantum's photo space, with 35 touch screens, 15 tablet-size devices and eight digital photo finders (that help find hard-to-track items) represent the state of the art in photo galleries.

Most of Royal's ships are more retro. The relatively new Oasis and Allure of the Seas have 22 digital kiosks where guests can view, manipulate and purchase photos. But Image Group also prints all the photos taken on the Oasis and Allure, although it puts them in folders organized by cabin, rather than displaying them on a wall.

The print-and-display galleries will remain on many older Royal ships for some time, Davies said. 

"It will take time to transition to this new business model," he said. "This is the first time we've done this in terms of print on request. It will take a little time to settle into it and get it absolutely right."

A shift to digital packaging

At Carnival Cruise Line, a transition is also underway. It will be testing digital packages that work with its current print model on one ship this winter to gauge consumer response and demand. 

Guests will have the choice of one of three packages, enabling them to buy either a set number of images or all the images taken on an entire cruise, delivered on a USB thumb drive.

Photo displays aboard Princess Cruises' Regal Princess. Like other lines, Princess Cruises has carved out space for a high-end custom portrait business. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst

Carnival said the digital images will be a better value on a per-file basis than the current pricing offered by prints. 

Like many other cruise lines, Carnival also offers a DVD of each cruise that includes brief glimpses of many guests, along with footage of the cruise, its destinations and live events.

Many cruise lines have found that guests are asking for fewer photos than in the past, when cruise ship photographers could count on a steady stream of orders each voyage.

"It was a very captive market," said Michael Miller, director of the Ship's Photographer, which handles photos for Cunard Line and P&O Cruises. "We had it all to ourselves."

Today, with almost every guest equipped with a digital camera or a camera-capable smartphone that takes quality pictures, many guests are opting to snap their own photos, driving down demand for the professional variety.

"There's been [everything] from a free fall in photographic revenue onboard to diminished returns year after year," Miller said. "We're still talking about a significant business both for the cruise lines and in general, but the industry has been challenged by the advent of digital and what it's meant to the average consumer."

One response has been to change the type of photo that onboard photographers shoot.

While they still do embarkation, gangplank and dinner photos, there's less emphasis on those because they're the type of images that consumers can take themselves.

Instead, Miller said, the Ship's Photographer is taking more studio-quality photos with professional lighting for a customized album that tells the story of a passenger's cruise.

The album blends photos of the passengers with stock shots of the ship and port destinations, tied together with a narrative written by professional copywriters. 

If a special enrichment speaker or performer is on the ship, it might include a page about them.

In one example, passengers who have paid $125 for five prints can, for an extra $50, embed them in a 24-page book. "It becomes a very good value for money," Miller said. "It's a hardback book, a beautiful glossy book you'd love to have and cherish."

Making room for cameras

There's been an upswing at many lines in the use of spaces around ships during the evening to do more personalized photography. 

"Usually there are four to seven studio locations throughout the ship and more than 34 backdrops we are using," said Laszlo Keresztes, operations and development manager for MSC Cruises, in Geneva.

Aboard the MSC Divina, a couple chooses photos to buy. Usually there are four to seven studio locations on an MSC ship.

And many lines have also carved out space for a high-end custom portrait business. Carnival has Dream Studios, Princess Cruises has Platinum and on Norwegian Cruise Line, it's called Perspectives.

Despite prices that can run past $1,000 for some packages, Ross Henderson, vice president of onboard revenue and shore excursions at Norwegian, said demand is there and growing. 

"I think it's a product for which guests are willing to splurge, in a similar vein to weddings and other events that are priceless," Henderson said. "When they're on a cruise, they're in a perfect environment with everyone together, with the time on their hands to go through the process of getting those pictures taken, which will last a lifetime."

To further differentiate its photo offerings from those taken on smartphones, Perspectives takes photos that work together in a cluster or mosaic of images on a wall. So, for example, the "Verve" collection groups 11 mounted images in a larger wall ensemble that works as a unified grouping, for $1,399. Photos are shot on the cruise, and Norwegian works with an outside vendor to have them printed, mounted and shipped to the passenger at home, Henderson said.

At the other end of the spectrum, some consumers are opting to purchase only digital images. On some ships, this enables passengers to buy a set number of photos for a fixed price, take them all home on a disc, then choose the ones they like best in a more relaxed environment.

Software included on the CD enables guests to unlock the images at home for print or other uses. They can also buy additional images post-cruise using a feature on the CD.

Davies described this method as one way to mitigate another common problem: the crush on the last night as everyone tries to sort through and pay for the photos that have been taken over the course of the cruise.

"The last day is not an easy day, so we turn that around in our thinking and say rather than making people come to the photo gallery to choose what images they want, give them a CD," Davies said. "All the images are locked. They take them home, put them into their computer and put an application on their machine, and then they can choose at their leisure."

At Carnival, guests are offered a discount if they purchase photos during the first two days of the cruise.

Enabling technologies

Several recent advances go hand in hand with digital images to improve the photo-buying experience. One is facial recognition, or image-matching software, which makes photo searches quicker and easier.

Packages from Norwegian Cruise Line’s high-end portrait business, Perspectives, can run past $1,000.

Cruise lines are cautiously testing the software, which currently matches some but not all faces with photos, requiring a backup mechanism. 

"We've got a combination of Google search-type criteria for recognition of people looking at photographs," said Andrew Burt, general manager of the Ship's Photographer. "If you can put in a couple of words to describe the particular restaurant, or maybe the port, they can sort of drill down and limit the number of photos they're finding that way."

Another digital technology that promises to improve the photo selection process is software to electronically link each photo taken to the cabin of the subject. Norwegian introduced such software on the Norwegian Breakaway last year and is rolling it out to other ships, including the Norwegian Star and Gem this year.

The system enables passengers to swipe their key card on a device linked to the photographer's camera, tagging the photo to the cabin. That makes finding the photos in an electronic kiosk much easier.

"We really believe it is the wave of the future," Henderson said. "We need to get away from the concept of not being able to link photos to guests and just putting them on a wall and have the guests find them, especially with the size of all these new vessels coming out."

That system, in turn, paves the way for another innovation: being able to choose and buy pictures from a passenger's cellphone or other portable device. 

"As you look at how photography is becoming more digital and the technology really does exist to do this kind of thing, it just made sense to create a different system," Henderson said. "Down the road, the way we see it, we'd like that kiosk to become something transportable via people's devices. 

"So in other words, your device can be your kiosk; you don't have to go to the gallery to look at your photos. You can sit in your cabin and look at your photos and choose which ones to buy there. And that can result in freeing up a lot of space that you don't have to dedicate to a large gallery."

The tech that will make travel easier, more interactive and personal

Samsung Futurescape: The tech that will make travel easier, more interactive and personal

By Travolution

This week Samsung ran its second Futurescape technology showcase in London promoting how the travel and transportation industry will increasingly use modern devices and software.

Some of what was on show was aimed at the retail side of travel, others the more functional side. Lee Hayhurst picks out some highlights.

This virtual showroom technology has been built by Gateshead-based ZeroLight. It is already in use in car showrooms by the likes of Jaguar and Audi.

The latter has got rid of all vehicles in its store opposite the Ritz in central London. The virtual product is built electronically from the manufacturer’s design specifications and the result is something that looks and appears to be just like the real thing.

It means the product is bespokable within the limits of what the manufacturer offers so, in terms of vehicles, different colours, wheels and set ups can be instantly added.

ZeroLights says this has seen a marked increase in uptake of premium features such as sports wheels on vehicles, because the customer sees how they actually look compared to entry level options.

The firm has worked with British Airways on the design of new premium-class cabins because it allows the user to take a virtual tour before anything is decided in reality.

It says it has also had interest from cruise companies because it allows people to take a tour of a ship before committing to a holiday.

Offering virtual tours of hotels is another obvious potential use of this in travel, although it does require a certain consistency of decor and design to keep complexity to a manageable level.

More excitingly the technology has been developed to work with Oculus Rift 3D virtual reality gaming headgear.

Oculus Rift was recently bought by Facebook, and the technology opens up the prospect of a customer being able to almost touch and feel the product in-store as they make their decision about what to buy.

Big Touch Screen Retailing

This interactive touchscreen sales wall, using Worldline technology, is in use in Adidas sports stores, and offers customers the chance to interact and research different product options before they buy.

Graphics, video, celebrity endorsements - you name it - all are available at the touch of a screen, enabling a store to offer limitless options without having to physcially hold all the stock.

For travel the opportunties for using such responsive large screen touch responisive technology is not new – Microsoft surface has been trialled in a number of travel agencies.

But the technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated and modern retail outlets are looking to offer customers use of such gadgets to drive footfall and improve the retail experience.

Interactive Digital Promotional Screen

In the foreground in this picture is a simpler version of the above designed by Worldline to be used to drive people into your store.

Product offers and QR codes are displayed on the screen giving shoppers attracted by what it is displaying a special offer if they visit a store.

They could be placed in airports to capture travellers’ attention as they arrive or check-in to promote retail outlets in the departure lounge.

They could also be used in shopping centres, or even in large stores to direct attention to particular outlets or concessions.

Reviews At Your Fingertips

Here is the Duty Free shop of the future - or it could be any type of store.

Shoppers are using technology on mounted Samsung tablets developed by Uberated, a company which is only two months old.

It allows in-store shoppers to quickly and easily access all professional product reviews for the item they are interested in, all in one place.

This way, the consumer gets the same ‘at home’ research capability they expect when researching a product but without having to go back and forth via Google to find the relevant reviews.

Being in store, they can then order the product there and then, having had their decision endorsed by the product review they’ve read in store.

To date Uberated has been developing their technology for the selling of electrical goods like cameras and has not exploited its application in travel retail.

However, a similar use could be envisaged for travel, with retailers using the tablets to offer more information than they currently do in brochures, including independent reviews and travel articles.

Touchscreen Tour Guide

Zafire is a software firm developing solutions for the aviation industry and this touchscreen interface has been developed with airports in mind.

Travellers can access general information about their destination at the touch of a button using the graphical display.

When not being actively used by a customer, the screen can be used to promote a particular retailer or attraction.

Zafire sees these sorts of screens proliferating in places like airports with the cost of having the hardware mitigated by various ‘advertising as a service’ commercial deals.

The firm has also developed the departure board of the future, which unlike conventional departure boards do not need lots of hardware attached to them to operate.

Cloud-based, they are basically plug-in-and-go digital devices working via Wi-Fi networks, so maintenance costs for airport operators are reduced.

Because there’s never a departure board where you need one, customers can use a mobile QR code app which downloads the relevant information onto their device and updates them on their phone.

These departure boards are currently in use at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.

Biometric secure access

More of a functional application of technology this one, but Samsung technology is being used to develop the customs gates of the future.

This gate uses biometric data to recognise the passenger and allow them through based on a scan of their face.

The technology will cut down on fraud associated with paper access or any other type of physical passes.

It could be used to control access to any office or building or at any point on the journey through an airport where security checks are required.

Real-time travel advice

Turning to the world of trains now, and Worldline again, which has developed technology to allow information from the control centre to be accessed throughout the network.

The concept is that the same source of data that the central control station uses is made available to all staff so they can pass this on to customers.

As many regular train users today know, getting reliable information from on-train and station staff about delays can be incredibly difficult.

Often customers or other members of the public on the scene are able to find out what’s going on and communicate this to travellers before staff.

The Worldline software allows this information to be accessed by the relevant people on handheld touchscreen devices.

In time these will also replace the old clunky portable ticket machines guards carry by being able to scan tickets for validity and retail upgrades or replacements there and then.

Technically there’s no reason why this sort of data can’t be made available to third parties so travel agents and tour operators can give customers up-to-date advice about delays getting to and from airports.

Mobile could pose biggest threat to travel stores of the future

By Travolution

The move by technology giant Apple to establish a high street presence should provide the inspiration for the bricks and mortar travel stores of the future, but mobile could emerge as their biggest threat.

The fourth annual WTM Vision half-day conference in London debated the future of the high street with David Burling, managing director of Tui UK and Andy Washington, managing director of Expedia taking part in a panel debate.

Burling used the example of Apple, which has a network of stores throughout the UK in prime locations showcasing its products, as an example of how the future of the high street might look.

“The travel agency has evolved and it will keep evolving. If you have bookings that can be transacted across different channels the stores of the future may be different from the stores of today.

“What is clear is that the quality of the service and advice that good travel agents can give is still very important.

“Channels are becoming more blurred. The technology will become more available for consumers to start the booking in one channel and finish it elsewhere.

“The strength of the retailer is really around the product knowledge and customer service but there is also a role for the stores of the future offering more inspiration at the very early stages of the booking.

“Who would have believed that Apple of all people would have decided to open a load of retail stores?”

Mike Greenacre, former managing director of Co-operative travel  and a delegate at today’s event agreed.

“I very much agree with Dave about inspiration. The high street has greatly evolved and I think it will continue. The big change that will come is how retail stores embrace this technology.

“Where there is an Apple store it’s the busiest shop in town by a long long way.”

However, Andy Washington, managing director of Expedia UK, said: “The biggest threat to the high street us mobile.

“What’s stopping me going into a high street store getting them to do all the work and then googling it on my mobile to find it cheaper?”

Burling said Tui UK’s strategy is based around its differentiated product offering that stems from its close partnerships with hoteliers that has seen it develop a number of resort concepts.

“We want to be involved in designing a particular hotel experience with our partners. By doing that we get a better consumer experience, better repeat business and better reviews."

Burling said concepts like its Splashworld water park resorts were showing “huge growth”.

“It’s identifying the customer requirements and working with hotel partners. We can do that because of our scale.”

Cruise agents demand simpler technology and more aggregation

By Travolution

Travolution's sister site Travel Weekly and Amadeus invited agents to discuss cruise technology o the day the GDS unveiled its Cruise Shop system

Agents bemoan lack of aggregation as lines steer trade to own systems

Agents are battling a lack of aggregation in the cruise sector as operators entice them to use their own in-house booking systems.

Amadeus Cruise Shop features most of the main cruise lines in the UK with the notable exception of Carnival UK’s brands: P&O Cruises, Cunard and Princess Cruises.Carnival UK trade arm Complete Cruise Solution pulled out of the Amadeus system in 2011 to save on distribution costs.

Amadeus hopes to entice lines back with a new trade platform developed with CWT Digital to give agents a one-stop shop to search for and compare product easily and quickly.

However, many lines are incentivising agents to use their own technology – resulting in agents switching between multiple systems to earn more commission.

This is slowing agents down, hampering their ability to compare deals and sell cruise and even putting some off selling cruise entirely, the round-table heard.

Paul Frost (pictured right), marketing director at Jetline Cruise, said: “Lines have pushed everyone away from Amadeus because they want to entice you to sell their product.

“This is no bad thing, but to ask an agent, who has a customer who does not know what they want, to log in to Norwegian Cruise Line, to Cruising Power for  to Complete Cruise Solution, to Polar for Carnival, well, no agent’s going to do that.

“To run an effective business you can’t have an agent spending three or four hours on one customer trying to find something when they don’t even know what they are trying to find. Agents are fighting against what should be a really simple process.”

Andy Stark, managing director of Global Travel Group, said: “There is aggregation for every other type of product but it seems to me there’s no aggregator for cruise.”

Frost said: “There used to be Amadeus, but cruise lines decided to invest money to keep the agents within their own framework.”

Cruise Shop has solved a key failing of existing systems, according to Frost.

Frost said one of the major failures of cruise booking systems is they do not enable agents to search for a selection of ports with the required dates.

“It will be interesting to see if Amadeus has solved this as this has been one of the biggest problems for agents,” he said.

“You can never ask an agent to make such a search. I would not want my agents to do that sort of enquiry because it would take them three or four hours and they would end up with nothing.”

Having been shown how the new Amadeus system enables a search by multiple destinations, Frost said: “You have just solved a huge issue the industry has.”

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Quality of cruise content is key issue in battle for sales

Cruise operators could generate more sales through agents if they ensured the content they have on their own sites was available to the trade.

Leading agency consortium Advantage Travel Centres represents a wide range of cruise sellers, from Cruise.co.uk at one end of the market to single-brand high street stores at the other.

To help its members it has developed its own Gateway booking platform with Multicom.

But Claire Brighton, Advantage commercial account manager, said:

“All our agents are looking for some technology that would allow them to quote a cruise in a quicker way.

“We have built our own gateway and tried to put cruise lines on that. The issue is the content that you pull via XML has not got as much information as on their own sites.”

Dan Caplin, managing director of CWT Digital, said there was a wider issue with online content, with neither agents nor operators answering the questions people have.

“It’s the responsibility of cruise lines to get over what makes their product different. And agents need to get content online to change people’s perceptions.”

Jetline’s Frost said many deals loaded on to systems were overly complex, as cruise operators constantly tweaked offers and incentives to drive sales.

“At times there are five different options to book exactly the same cruise,” he said. “People just want simplicity.

“We are a reasonably-sized agent but we have to put huge resources in just to update our website because none of this comes through any technology feed.”

Travel lacking expertise in technology consulting, claims Codegen

Travel firms are often badly advised about their travel technology needs by advisors who are not sufficiently technically minded, according to one leading supplier.

Codegen, which supplies its Travelbox solution to travel companies including Virgin Holidays and Monarch Group among others, believes a lack of strategic strategy is why a lot of travel IT projects go wrong.

Bharat Patel commercial director at Codegen, said too often firms are blinded by the science and lose sight of the strategic control of the technology project they are working on.

He said: "Where a lot of these projects go wrong is the buying decisions are made by the directors but the actual decisions are made on the ground floor.

“This leads to a strategic divergence between the project’s intentions and what is actually implemented.”

Patel said there needs strong strategic control to ensure an IT project doesn't just become a replication of an old system.

Monarch Group distribution director Stuart Jackson told Travolution how it is using the implementation of Travelbox to underpin a fundamental transformation in how the organisation operates and a modernisation of its various divisions.

Patel said: "If you bring an outsider in with some technological savvy they will be able to make the right decisions with you. You see so many poor consultants who are features-led.

“For Monarch using Travelbox means they can choose the way they approach their business. The benefit we had working with Monarch was their consultants were not entrenched in a way of working.”

Codegen believes it is now reaping the rewards from its decision to base its technology on the Linux open source platform from the outset when it was established in 1999.

Patel said the firm came from outside of the industry and although there was initial resistance to its approach the web and Java has now come to dominate more traditional forms of travel IT architecture.

“We started off with a standard version based on open source because all our guys did not like Microsoft. They also wanted to be independent, they did not want to be tied down to a particular vendor,” he said.

With the stability and power of Oracle sitting behind Codegen, it believes it has the ability to scale up and has done tests to give it the confidence it can cope with large numbers.

Patel said Codegen has a very clear focus on research and development at its headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka where it employs nearly 200 people, including a number of PhD students.

“A lot of people build technology based on what they learn, but we test out new technology. Our R&D is active 24/7, whether it’s client-led or not

“We work very closely with universities. They can implement what we are doing in their research. You have to be a true technology person to understand the latest technology, you need academic people to go into research papers to find out what this is all about.”

Codegen says its technology is particularly suited to large tour operators and that it gives them the flexibility to operate as a traditional package supplier but also more dynamically creating product and offers on the fly.

The Travelbox system can sit behind all divisions bringing efficiencies in terms of product loading and better more integrated management information.

A recent innovation known as Wide Search allows the user to switch seamlessly between various booking flows, whether that’s traditional packages, pre-packages or flexible packages, allowing agents to tailor trips without moving between systems.

Wide Search is helping Codegen to hone its mobile offering which uses artificial intelligence aimed at generating more relevant, personalised offers for its customers’ customers.

The firm is also looking to exploit voice search and the new generation HTML5 interface as mobile continues to establish itself as a vital channel for travel firms.

“We want to be in a position to be there when the next big thing comes along,” said Patel. “People are becoming more adaptable to technology. The whole mobility side has opened up a lot of avenues. We have devices around us all the time now.

“Business are still 80:20 when it comes to technology and innovation – they want to make sure they protect their core business first. They do not want to be the pioneer. CodeGen brings strong basics and does the pioneering for them.

“New entrants come in with a technology background and some marketing and sometimes they fall down because they have not got the travel experience.

“We see ourselves as innovators and innovators are looking beyond today, they are not stuck looking at the present because if you do that in the IT world you will never survive.” 

Thomas Cook joins Thomson in tech-driven bricks and mortar fight back

Thomas Cook has become the latest bricks and mortar traditional high street travel agent promising to emulate digital giant Apple with a new concept store.

The travel giant says its new store in Leeds, that will open this month ahead of the turn of year peak booking period, with exploit the latest technology to engage with customers.

The reveal about its plans came just a month after rival Thomson spoke of its intention to open a “groundbreaking” concept store of its own within 12 months.

The “shop of the future” would seek to emulate Nike, Apple and Audi, ditching brochure racks in favour of digital screens and the latest modern point of sale technology.

Other traditional operators including Kuoni and Virgin Holidays are also brand flagship stores in high street locations, the latter having incorporated Aurasma augmented reality among other technologies in its High Street Kensington location.

Cook said research has shown that 46% of customers still seek face-to-face interaction with their travel agent but providing an omni-channel retail environment is key for the future of travel.

Retail director, Joanna Wild, said: “Our new store will be more Apple than travel and uses technology and techniques championed by iconic, high-tech brands to place our customers at the heart of the experience; allowing them to choose how they access information and dictate the level of assistance they receive from us.

“We know that shopping habits are changing, with more and more customers researching their holidays online and transactions becoming quicker, but we also know that a holiday is a massive purchase for customers who want to be inspired and enjoy that purchase process, and of course they still value that human touch and having expert advice on-hand if they need it.

“This is where our concept store will stand out and we will use it as a test bed to see what elements we might want to introduce to other stores in future.”

The 1,400sq ft concept store, in Leeds’ White Rose shopping centre, will allow customers to research and book holidays however they choose, whether searching and booking on a tablet, consulting one of 25 staff, watching a video or checking in on Facebook to qualify for a special offer.

Cook said “the holiday vibe in-store will be created with ambient music and video, while social media technologies will enable customers to share personalised, holiday-related content” and it will be the first step “in truly networking Thomas Cook travel consultants across the country”.

Recently appointed head of retail for large shops Lucy Green, who is in charge of the project, said: “The aim is to build a store that allows customers to engage and interact with us in any way they want.

“Our research found customers want options, and they felt the only option at the moment was to come in and sit with a consultant for a significant amount of time. The research focused on what they would like the store to be, and how they wanted to engage with us.”

Green, who formerly worked for The White Company, added: “Up and down the high street you can see where retailers are fighting back by investing in their bricks and mortar to create showcases for their brands.

“Ultimately it’s about future-proofing them by creating a more profitable, omni-channel retail environment but it’s also in direct response to reaction from customers who are coming back to the high street for that personal service – especially for high value or significant purchases – with John Lewis being a perfect example.”