travelbasys: Pioneer of travel data automation

API management gave travelbasys speedy secure access and uniform data to enable communication with customers in real time.

Sabrina Bohr Sabrina Bohr

Travel is an essential value driver in the German economy and it feeds a complex ecosystem.

Before the pandemic, Germans generated over 90 billion euros each year by traveling. There are around 10,000 travel agencies and more than 3,000 tour operators in Germany alone, as well as many IT service providers and content providers who create the offerings and enable travel booking systems.

travelbasys, a provider of market-leading back office and administration systems for travel agencies, recognized the complexity of the transaction chains and the value of resulting data in the travel industry. This was partly because its own company structure, with two shareholders (TUI and REWE Touristik), relied on absolute data transparency.

travelbasys laid the foundation to successfully use data as a competitive advantage with its Adabas & Natural-based RBS system in the 90s, and it took over the bookkeeping for an entire industry. The RBS system from travelbasys integrates all data silos and establishes a single source of truth for real-time data processing—available for thousands of travel agencies to use.

Today, the number of systems available in the tourism industry has increased tenfold and connected customers are demanding more as they became more agile and more digital. For example, customers and service providers urgently want to be able to look up and manage their data online.

APIs, transparency and security

For travelbasys, this was a good reason to go further down the road it had already paved together with Software AG – using a new tool: webMethods API Gateway.

travelbasys needed speedy secure access and uniform data to enable communication with customers in real time. API management makes this possible—all in accordance with data privacy laws. It expands the network travelbasys has already created and integrates the systems of companies and service providers elegantly and securely.

The technology also ensures internal transparency. By connecting its own systems with those of its shareholders, TUI und REWE Touristik, travelbasys can deliver current financial data like liquidity in real time to their dashboards. This is especially important during a pandemic, when the speed and reliability of data exchange has never been more valuable.

New services

API management opens the door for new services that add value for customers—personalized, automated, high quality and available 24/7. These services include commission accounting, querying sales or order statistics and automated service provider reconciliation as individual packages. travelbasys’ customers benefit from integrated, demand-oriented services at manageable costs. Customers who want to use these services can choose between a revenue-based or transaction-based payment model to so that all costs are clear.

Efficiency

travelbasys implemented Software AG’s webMethods in 2014 as part of its transition to Linux®, and established the necessary conditions for webMethods API Gateway.

“For our new products, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can just reuse individual services and implement them quickly for our customers,” said Peter Tenbusch, CEO of travelbasys.

Learn more about making your enterprise applications API-ready by clicking below.