Talk Topic: The Forces, Factors, Trends, and Directions in Travel Distribution
Bob Offutt, Travel Technology Consulting
September 26, 2007

Abstract
The Forces, Trends, and Directions in Travel Distribution:
Market Direction: Size projections, offline vs. online, trends by region and expected growth of airline direct sites

New Trends:
Travel 2.0: Social networks, effect/opportunity of search in travel distribution, rich content, the long tail, mashups
Dynamic Packaging: huge market opportunities;super mashups can capture the market
Travel Agency Technology: A review of technology supporting travel agencies - legacy, 2007 and predictions for the future

Bio
Bob Offutt brings over 20 years of experience in Information Technology, IT management and Travel Industry dynamics. His strength is aligning technology and business perspectives, recognizing that technology can enable business direction and conversely, business needs drive technology direction.

Bob currently is the president of Travel Technology Consulting which assists Travel related companies with technology and strategy issues. He is also a Senior Technology analyst for PhoCusWright, a Connecticut based Strategy and Advisory Service.

Bob retired from Sabre Holdings in 2005. Before his retirement, he was the Chief Architect and Senior Vice President, responsible for the strategy and plan to migrate from a monolithic Mainframe environment to Distributed Open Systems and a Service Oriented Architecture. This involved developing a Technology Roadmap for migration of key applications and supporting infrastructure as well as overseeing the development and implementation of the next generation core systems, the Integrated Computing Environment.

Prior to being Sabre’s Chief Architect, Bob founded and led Sabre Labs, a technology incubator that made Sabre the industry leader in new online products and services. At Sabre Labs, he was responsible for such innovations as Sabre Virtually There, My Sabre, and hotel geographical and neighborhood search. He holds 7 US patents for innovations in Travel Distribution.

Before Sabre, Bob was the Senior Information Technology official for the U. S. Coast Guard. He led that organization into a standard Information Technology environment, setting software, hardware and interface standards to insure interoperability between different “mission” areas. During his 26 year Coast Guard career, Bob implemented service wide financial systems, teletype switching systems, national radio distress systems as well as having command of 2 Coast Guard Cutters.

Bob has also served on the faculty of the University of Puget Sound, George Washington University and the University of Southern California.

Representative Projects include:

Developing the technology considerations, threats and opportunities for the Enterprise Strategy of a major GDS.

Creating a strategic technology roadmap aligning business and technology perspectives.

Designing and implementing the Universal Services Gateway moving the GDS into the world of web services.

Design of a lower cost services delivery platform for a global corporation.

Spearheading the plan and design for global XML connectivity.

Developing the conceptual architecture, layering front ends, legacy, open systems, high performance middleware and third party business services for a major GDS.


Bob earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and a Masters Degree in Management Science from the U. S. Navy Postgraduate School.