Abacus Vietnam on the road to modernizing aviation and tourism services
Abacus, a leading automatic
booking system in the Asia-Pacific
region, is an alliance of such air
carriers as All Nippon Airways,
Cathay Pacific Airways, China
Airlines, Eva Airways, Garuda
Indonesia, Hong Kong Dragon
Airlines, Malaysia Airlines,
Philippine Airlines, Royal Brunei
Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore
Airlines with SABRE Group.
Once connecting with Abacus, customers can access more than 40,000
travel agencies all over the world, retrieve flying timetables from 700
airways, reserve rooms at 40,000 hotels affiliated to 180 world's leading
hotel groups, and rent cars at some 50 rent-a-car firms in 100 countries
and territories. Hooking up to Abacus distribution systems, customers
are able to use the network of SABRE Group, which includes 17
computer centers linking with more than 148,000 terminals worldwide and
is capable of transmitting around 190 million messages daily. This is
also a tremendous bank of tourist information.
Abacus Vietnam is a joint venture between Vietnam Airlines (holding a
90% stake) and Abacus International Co. After five years of operations
and development in Vietnam, Abacus Vietnam has improved the service
of selling aviation and tourism products. The year 2000 is a challenge for
aviation and travel markets, but is a good chance for Abacus Vietnam to
affirm itself and thrive. Providing new and strange services, Abacus
Vietnam has completed the connection of its network to all air booking
agents in Hanoi, HCM City, Haiphong, Dong Nai and Vung Tau, and is
expanding its agents in Hue and Quang Ninh.
In July 1996, the strategy to renovate terminals was introduced for the first
time on the local market. Abacus Vietnam succeeded in installing and
connecting PCs at its pilot agents with networking software. Thanks to
this success, Vietnamese agents have been able to use the new,
powerful Abacus systems in reserving hotel rooms and booking air
tickets. On November 5, 1996, Abacus Vietnam succeeded in installing
and linking the automatic ticketing service for some experimental
booking agents of Vietnam Airlines. In June 1998, with the help of
Vietnam Airlines and the parent company, Abacus Vietnam transferred
all its agents to a new computer network. A telecoms solution on the
SITA network was also completed at the same time.
The staff of Abacus Vietnam is fairly modest with 25 employees
(including 15 in Hanoi) specializing in technical assistance, market
development, and the training of ticket sellers and administrative officers.
Abacus Vietnam is currently the only booking service provider in
Vietnam with supportive policies from Vietnam Airlines. Constantly
raising training quality, standardizing staff and opening training centers in
Hanoi, Abacus Vietnam aims to provide more and more effective
automatic booking services for travel agencies in Vietnam.
It is reported that the 100th agent of Abacus Vietnam has been
connected to the Abacus network.
By Thao Linh Chi - The Saigon Times Weekly - December 16, 2000.
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