Travel Info

SOTA Projected To Strengthen Malaysian Travel Business Resilience

http://www.sotanetwork.com

Kuala Lumpur, 19 August 2009: Creative Advances Technology Sdn Bhd (CAT), a leader and pioneer in tourism technologies officially launched its Standard Online Tourism Architecture (SOTA) at the recent SOTA International Conference attended by leading players from the tourism fraternity.

The conference addressed solutions for the travel industry amidst the economic downturn, influenza pandemic, regional security, and delay in technology adoption. SOTA presents an optimistic view for tourism, one of the hardest hit industries.

Travel, tourism and hospitality are the worlds largest industry, responsible for 8% of global employment, 9% of invested capital and 10% of global GDP. Global travel revenues amount to over USD7.9 trillion in 2008 (World Bank).

The Malaysian travel industry is banking on the SOTA platform as the impetus to tap on the global travel revenues to date, over 750 participating travel agents, airlines, hotels and travel suppliers have signed up.

The early adopters of SOTA have already enjoyed up to 30% increase in sales. From the base of 550 travel agents that signed up in 2008, the SOTA network generated RM62.1 million transactions last year. On average, each travel agent enjoyed RM115,000 worth of business.

Over the span of nine years CAT has been an e-business catalyst for the Malaysian tourism industry having developed online B2B and B2C business platforms consisting of e-commerce solutions, an integrated e-marketplace, extensive information and rich media content, and enabled technologies that suit the travel industry. All these culminated into the RM20million SOTA platform that was introduced to the trade last year.

As the developer of the successful VirtualMalaysia.com, the official e-tourism portal for the Ministry of Tourism, which currently has more than 500 industry partners, we understand the mechanics that make the tourism industry tick, said Rohizam.

That is why weve created SOTA, a travel eco-system to leverage on the power of networking, connecting with 1 billion potential travel customers, through VirtualMalaysia.com, Tourism Malaysias portal, the state tourism sites of Perak, Johor, Pahang, Labuan and Sarawak, and international tourism sites like IMT-GTtourism.com. Our collaboration with Google also helped us create Virtual Malaysia Google Maps. We also work closely with partners Cari.com (800 million hits a month) and Nuff Nang (60,000 blogs, 30 million hits per day, 900 million hits per month) whose members carry out active conversations on travel. And, very importantly, we leverage on social channels such as Facebook (275 million users) and Twitter (44.5 million users).

Mr Gregory A. Duffell, CEO of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) was at the conference to educate tourism players on the changing game plan of travel worldwide. Traffic alone does not translate into sales. This is the era of web 2.0 where travellers want to have a say in the places theyve visited and want to visit. The Internet is their preferred medium to plan and book their travel. According to an eMarketer survey, 77% use the Internet compared to 12% who use the newspaper, said Duffell.

Tourism players can use the SOTA platform for free, said Rohizam. Users will only be charged when a firm enquiry is made and when a transaction is secured. This translates into tremendous cost benefits, especially for business owners in these less than favourable economic times. At the same time, the platform increases opportunities for generating leads and sales, and improves travel business resilience.

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