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Travel industry getting act together

Travel organizations can merge their apps into a mega kiosk that will allow travelers to check out of their hotels and onto their flights in one visit. The standards are in place, the technology is proven. So why wait?

January 14, 2004

The hospitality and airline industries have provided excellent examples recently of providing a business case for self-service.

The airline example is the announcement last week that Las Vegas' McCarran Airport is testing the world's first multi-airline check-in system. For the hospitality industry there are two examples: IBM's test of self-check out kiosks in flagship Hilton Hotels, and this week's announcement that Starwood Hotels and Resorts is testing check-in kiosks in two large hotels.

Hopefully in the future, these organizations can merge their applications into a mega kiosk that will allow travelers to check out of their hotels and onto their flights in one visit. The standards have been in place for about a year now. And the technology is real. So why the wait?

Chris Zimmerman, editor

Taking off

The really smart thing that the airline industry and its technology providers have done is work together to standardize a kiosk platform so that it's easy for customers, like the airports and airlines, to adopt kiosks. The result of the coordinated efforts is CUSS. Yes, the term is weird, but the concept is great. CUSS stands for Common Use Self-Service. It's easy for other kiosk vendors to use CUSS as a springboard into the airline market, too. And most importantly, the standards body has thought of the end user, the traveler, with the idea of needing only one terminal to access any participating airline.

IBM and ARINC have jointly developed the SelfServ Kiosk Platform that is in test at McCarran Airport. SelfServ conforms to the CUSS standard. Twelve airlines at McCarran, and 24 international and U.S. airlines to date have announced plans to integrate on the ARINC/IBM platform. That's big news.

"The significance of the McCarran implementation is that it's not a proving ground. It's live technology, and it has been adopted by the 12 largest carriers in North America," said Rob Ranieri, practice lead for business consulting services at IBM Global Services.

The applications were written by a variety of providers, he said, showing that the CUSS standard is truly open and interoperability is no problem.

Airlines are adopting kiosks for the obvious benefits - eliminating long waits for travelers, freeing up staff for other tasks - but as more companies want to install terminals, the issue of floor space in the airports has been a concern. What a brilliant idea to develop common-use equipment and common-use technology so airports can place only one piece of hardware in their terminals, and travelers have only one kiosk to approach and make their choices.

Eventually, Ranieri said, hotels and resorts will use the standard to let guests not only check in or out of a room, but also check in for a flight, as well. And why not stop there? How about using CUSS to let travelers check in for their rental cars, too? Or to let them register for a convention they are in town to attend?

That's the sweet spot for kiosks - making life a little easier for users. If consumers appreciate the opportunity to take care of one piece of business on a kiosk, imagine how much they will like getting several things done in one visit to the terminal.

Building the business case

The International Air Transport Association realized this, and formed a self-service working group. This group developed CUSS. They've listed the following benefits:

Passengers are able to check in with multiple airlines using a single point of contact;

Airports only need to provide enough space for common-use kiosks, less room than would be needed for proprietary kiosks;

There is a flexible use of airport facilities and resources;

Airports and airlines can share operating costs;

CUSS provides a platform to access individual airline check-in applications in their native form. This is important because systems provided by airport authorities or handling agents might not be compatible with the airlines' host computer systems and business processes.

Imagine how this list of benefits will grow as the other areas of the travel and hospitality business get on board, too.

See related stories, "Airlines, kiosks and togetherness," "Hotel chain testing self-check in,"First multiple-airline check-in system makes debut,"Huge potential for kiosk trial at Hilton hotels."