Athena Products (Summary)

The main objective of Athena products is to provide the FULL scope of IT usage in travel industry. Primarily focusing at the travel suppliers, we design and develop system modules to suit various suppliers' workflow and models.

Athena's products focuses on behavioral workflow of the employees of the agency by implementing technology short-cuts. For example, in a full cycle of completing a reservation, we look at how a consultant works and divides her time in the cycle and starts to develop technology functions to automate each sections. As a result, users have commented on the user-friendliness and the ease of use in Athena products. We emphasise on the methods of usage of technology rather than enforcing big operational changes in using the rigid technology.

As explained in our White Paper, the main requirement automating a travel agency is to look at its 3 main areas - distribution, the travel agency main environment, and the suppliers interface.

Based on Athena's experience, it is recommended that the first step is to automate the internal travel agency operations. The issue of Suppliers Interface are handled within the agency to reduce manual data entry and reconciliation. Once the agency are able to manage and control core data electronically, the eCommerce Applications become a natural extension to the existing IT infrastructure.

We will explain how Athena products come into each of the main areas -

1. Travel Agency Main Environment

Travel Agency operations are divided into 3 areas -

front office: reservation functions
mid office: reporting and operations
back office: accounting and financial

Athena Bookings is a full fledged Travel Management System (TMS) that provides full functionalities to meet the requirement of the 3 offices of a travel agency. Athena Bookings are available in 5 versions, targeting specific core businesses of the travel agency -

Retail Edition - for small to medium retail travel agencies
Corporate Edition - for corporate ticketing agencies
WholeSale Edition - for consolidators and wholesalers
Inbound Edition - for Inbound tour operators
Enterprise Edition - for large agencies that have one or more core businesses as shown above.

More information about Athena Bookings can be found here.

For Tour Operators and WholeSalers, Athena Magellan allow the agency to create tour packages, airline fares, hotel rates, cruises and ferries, short tours, insurance and other travel products. Athena Magellan also provides distribution of fares through Athena Magellan (client), Internet fares search, and disk/files-based.

We also recognise the importance of business intelligence systems where you can analyse the travel agency' performance at a glance. Therefore, Athena WarBoard is a product where senior management can monitor and read real-time data to make business decision about the travel agency.

For Travel Agency that has multi locations - Headquarters and Branches - we have a Central product called Athena Focal to ensure all offices are connected and able to perform centralisation functions such consolidated reporting, payment and receipts, and other required activities.

2. Distribution and eCommerce Applications

Once the travel agency is automated, the ease of eCommerce applications such as distribution and other client-related Internet modules can be implemented as extension of existing systems. Athena has a full suite of eCommerce products to enable Travel Agencies to ride-on the Internet as medium for better services and revenue sources -

Athena eBookings: Internet Booking Engine where travel agency can set up their portal site to sell travel products. Athena eBookings as 2 versions -
- Retail for normal reservation portal and
- Corporate version targeting at corporate travelers which requires strict log-in and other reservation functions.
Athena eReporting: Internet Management Reporting System where a corporate traveller can retrieve travel-related reports such as expense reports, statement of account, booked airline carriers or hotel properties report and other management reports.

3. Suppliers Interface

Athena acknowledges that importance of interfacing with Main Suppliers and their distribution channels, e.g GDSs. Athena Bookings has interfaces with -

GDSs such as Abacus/Sabre, Amadeus and Galileo.
BSP clearing house - for reconciliation of air tickets
Hotel and Insurance - through their Internet Booking portals

With sophisticated and complex functions, Athena products are able to download data from different Suppliers with different formats, thus making seamless flow of information from one entity to another.