~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]

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.