Hospitality Net

WASHINGTON, DC | The OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel), the travel industry’s leading distribution standards development organization, announces Henry Harteveldt, Vice President & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research as the keynote speaker at its 2008 Advisory Forum.

Mr. Harteveldt will unveil the findings from a joint research project between Forrester Research and OpenTravel to understand attitudes within the travel industry towards industry standards-setting organizations and use of industry standards in XML development, and relate those findings toward distribution trends in the travel industry.

“As the travel industry’s online distribution capabilities continue to open up new markets and new segments, OpenTravel felt it was time to understand the role standards organizations play in the maturity of the distribution function,” said John Turato, Vice President Technology at Avis Budget Group. “As an open standards body, we give away our XML schemas to any company in the travel industry – OpenTravel member or not – that believes in the concept of open standards and a consistent messaging language. We’re looking forward to Forrester’s results so we can understand why companies use our schemas, what’s missing from the schemas and what OpenTravel can do to better serve the messaging needs of the industry.”

Following the keynote presentation, Mr. Harteveldt will moderate a panel discussion with members of the OpenTravel board of directors. The group will discuss the findings of Forrester’s research and its impact on the future direction of standards development and OpenTravel’s strategic direction.

About the 2008 Advisory Forum
The OpenTravel 2008 Advisory Forum will be held at the Westin Buckhead Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia on April 14-16, 2008. Mr. Harteveldt’s keynote speech will take place on Tuesday morning, April 15 2008.

Additional topics to be addressed at the event include:

About Forrester Research
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. For more than 24 years, Forrester has been making leaders successful every day through its proprietary research, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs

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.