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Introducing TXA: changing the face and pace of tourism marketing
16 Oct 2007
The Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) today launched a breakthrough initiative in digital marketing for the entire Australian tourism industry, with the signing of an alliance with Vcubed Pty Ltd (V3) which delivers Australia’s first truly inclusive booking exchange.
ATDW has teamed with V3 to provide a new service, Tourism Exchange Australia (TXA), using V3’s unique Open Booking Exchange™ technology. It will link tourism providers with distributors and is an industry-wide initiative, covering accommodation, tours, attractions and events.
TXA will make available this state of the art technology to 24,000 tourism and travel companies Australia wide.
The TXA will also provide all types of tourism distributors including travel agents and online publishers with access to the tourism companies’ real-time price and availability; and importantly the opportunity to book directly with the tourism supplier online or use their own booking engine.
"For local, state, national and international distributors, this initiative provides the ‘holy grail’ of access to Australian tourism operators through a common technology - which is open, inclusive and flexible enough to accommodate all distribution and booking models," said Ms Liz Ward, General Manager of ATDW.
"Tourism Exchange Australia will give the entire industry, from one-man B&B’s to large hotel chains, from snorkeling tours to bus operators, the chance to connect through a single exchange to the ever growing online market. All of these Australian companies’ products and services will be live and bookable and available to a wide range of distributors under business terms and conditions that they manage.
"The breadth and depth of the TXA initiative will also offer enormous opportunities for wholesalers, inbound and outbound tour operators, local visitor centres and regional tourism organisations," added Ms Ward.
"Importantly by using the Open Booking Exchange™ technology the TXA allows the tourism operators to choose their point or points of booking and as such allows ATDW to meet its key objective of commercial neutrality. The Exchange does not create a travel agent relationship doesn’t have its own booking engine. TXA has the potential to connect customers to any and all booking engines," said Mr Shane Crockett, Managing Director of V3.
Ms Ward said: "One of the key outcomes of this alliance is that, each State retains the ability to provide state-based data and connectivity to third party distributors within their own digital strategies.
"ATDW will continue to provide high quality information and images, available for publishing by licensed distributors, but now with TXA in place, will also be able to offer booking functionality to its distributors," added Ms Ward.
ENDS
For more information please call Emily Staniforth, Wilkinson Media 0402 349 856
About Vcubed Pty Ltd (V3)
V3 provides innovative proven products and services that promote growth and efficiency in the leisure industry. One of the core products of V3 is the V3Travel System which enables tourism businesses to sell live inventory in real time to customers through multiple internet distribution channels.
About Australian Tourism Data Warehouse
ATDW is owned by all the State/Territory government tourism organisations, as well as Tourism Australia. It was established in 2001 to create a comprehensive, high quality database that is available to licensed distributors to publish on their web sites.
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