CHENNAI : Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) will soon launch a hospitality product, which will be a high quality and cost effective solution for the hotel industry. This product will cover bookings in hotels and resorts, car rentals and other infrastructure for guests in the hotels. The product will be launched by March, according to G. Srinivasaraghavan, General Manager (Strategic Business Initiatives).

Mr. Srinivasaraghavan said the product would enable the hotels to store and integrate all information about any single customer so that the customer interaction would be meaningful and information based. This product could also be integrated with any other airline products of TCS. It works on common platforms such as Saber and Worldspan. The product would be first launched in the U.S., followed by U.K. and India. Once the hospitality product was launched, it would be integrated with the airline product. This would enable TCS to offer an end-to-end solution for both the airline and hospitality industries. As an SAP global services partner, TCS collaborated with SAP and many of its independent software vendor (ISV) partners to develop and market specific end-to-end solutions and services for the hospitality industry globally.

He said nearly four per cent of total TCS revenue (consolidated $2.97 billion in 2005-06) came from airline and hospitality industries. It was posting 70 per cent CAGR. Today, TCS was a preferred solution partner for over 50 clients across airlines, hotels and resorts, travel management and distribution companies, GDS (global distribution system), community solutions providers and cruise companies. Out of this, 50 to 60 per cent were from airline industry and 30 per cent from shipping and logistics, Mr. Srinivasaraghavan added.

The airline and hospitality products would be developed in Chennai centre at its Innovation Lab, established at a cost of $1 million. Globally, TCS had 2,200 people working for the U.S. travel and transportation business industry, of which 500 people focused on the hospitality segment.

Mr. Srinivasaraghavan said the lab had developed technology that would enable transfer of ticket information on to a bar code to a hand-held device. The lab was also working on kiosks, which would be placed in airports, where passengers on loyalty programmes could swipe their loyalty cards for the boarding pass.

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