With the internet gaining an even larger role in our everyday lives, the travel industry, a sector that has always been quick to adopt technological change, is currently at the forefront of incorporating this new way of doing business. Intefix, a leading provider of technological solutions for the travel industry, could not have ignored this new development and has created SaBIS, an advanced internet booking engine, to enable Travel Agencies, Tour Operators, online Travel providers and hotels to sell their diverse products online. The booking engine is modular in design and offers modules for the following:

• Air Tickets
• Hotels
• Transfers
• Rent a Car
• Yacht chartering
• Organized Tours and Cruises
• Congresses and Events
• Miscellaneous other services

The products above could either be derived from the Travel Agency’s own inventory, or be part of the offering of other suppliers of online inventory, such as international GDS systems or hotel consolidators. SaBIS will connect to these systems via TCP/IP in real time and seamlessly incorporate their products on the SaBIS booking engine. Such connections currently exist for Galileo, GoGlobal, YouTravel and SpecialTours, while Intefix is currently working to connect with even more such providers.

Sabis may be connected to back office systems, provided the back office system has such capabilities. The back office system can then act as a source of inventory (service descriptions, photographs, prices and availability) and at the same time receive all the bookings and payments made on the booking engine for further processing.

Payments for bookings made on the SaBIS booking engine may be processed on line through connections to various banks’ credit card clearing systems. Currently the list includes Alpha Bank, Eurobank, Piraeus Bank, Commercial Bank of Greece and JCC, while more can be developed upon request.

SaBis may be used both for B2C (Business to Consumer) and for B2B (Business to Business) transactions. End consumers have access to one “shopping basket”, while business users (other Travel Agencies) have access to multiple such “shopping baskets”, in order to be able to manage all the bookings and payments made.

Apart from the main SaBIS storefront website, an auxiliary administrative site is created through which the main site is maintained and where all the bookings and payments of the internet booking engine’s clients may be managed.