Hospitality Net

WASHINGTON, DC - The OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel), the travel industry's leading standards development organization, sold out its first European conference on 5 February 2008.

“We are thrilled with the response to our event,” said Valyn Perini, executive director of OpenTravel. “Travel companies in the European region has specific distribution needs, and OpenTravel is committed to meeting those needs. This will be the first of many OpenTravel events in Europe.”

The one-day event included speakers and attendees from a range of European businesses, including:

“HRS has just recently joined OpenTravel,” said Bruria Foerster, project manager of HRS, a a global hotel electronic reservation service based in Germany. “The online travel market in Europe is maturing, and we believe the time has come to actively participate in OpenTravel. Participation in an accepted standards body serves the business needs of HRS, and of the European industry as a whole.”

The conference focused on topics specific to the proven value of the OpenTravel specifications, and on how OpenTravel can benefit the European travel industry, including:

About the OpenTravel Alliance | The OpenTravel Alliance is passionate about solving the problems inherent with connecting multiple systems within the complex travel distribution arena.

OpenTravel's mission is to engineer specifications that make data transmission flow smoothly throughout travel, tourism and hospitality. OpenTravel creates, expands and drives adoption of open universal data specifications, including but not limited to the use of XML, for the electronic exchange of business information among all sectors of the travel industry.

With a diversified membership representing influential names in all sectors of the travel industry, OpenTravel is comprised of representatives from airlines, car rental firms, hotels, cruise lines, leisure suppliers, service providers, tour operators, travel agencies, and trade associations. Thousands of message structures are in use, carrying tens of millions of messages between travel trading partners every day. For more information, visit www.opentravel.org.