Major new airfare pricing system from Abacus

IT SYSTEM: Abacus International, Asia Pacific’s leading travel facilitator announced the launch of a major new airfare pricing system which delivers more fare options or travel agent fare queries, while improving the efficiency of the fares and pricing process by over 50%.

Abacus International Director, Fares and Pricing, Albert Hong said the launch of Abacus SmartPrice would provide a significant competitive boost for travel agents in the battle for best fares and followed extensive research into the needs of corporate and retail travel agent across Asia Pacific.

“Abacus SmartPrice will allow our network of more than 15,000 travel agency locations to search for the best fares with far greater reach and accuracy than existing solutions, accessing up to 650 qualifying fares from up to 32 airline from a single simple enquiry,” Hong said.

Powered by a new pricing logic developed by Abacus and its technology partner Sabre at a cost of over US$100 million, Abacus SmartPrice delivers the true lowest applicable fare as it searches in both private and public tariffs, to deliver a choice that includes net and published fares.

A new targeted low fare search feature allows travel agents to focus solely on the cheapest possible price with alternate itinerary options. This is a response to the growing demand from travel agents who are looking for the lowest fare available.

“Previously agents have to rely heavily on their own knowledge to search for possible alternative routes and carriers.

By contrast, Abacus SmartPrice sources all the relevant alternatives and displays them in a single integrated screen; taking out the guess work and speeding up the fare pricing process,” Hong said.

“The launch of Abacus SmartPrice will reinforce Abacus’ role as Asia Pacific’s leading travel facilitator managing more than 50 million bookings per year and will provide greater returns to travel agents as the regional travel industry continues to grow by more than a compounding 5% per year,” Hong said.