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Technology Stocks : IFLY - travel sales on the web pure play -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IFLYer who wrote (4689)	12/1/1999 6:23:00 AM
From: IFLYer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4761

800 Travel Systems and Sabre Enter Joint Venture Combination To Provide Interactive 'Live-Agent' Sales and Customer Support Along with Automated Reservation Capabilities biz.yahoo.com ir.stockmaster.com TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- 800 Travel Systems (Nasdaq: IFLY - news), a leading provider of a full range of travel-related products and services, today announced the co-development of the integrated IRIS!(TM) with Sabre (NYSE: TSG - news), the global leader in information technology for the travel and transportation industries. IRIS!(TM) and Sabre Web Reservations will empower 800 Travel Systems' customers with the ability to reserve airline tickets over an automated Sabre designed web-site along with the option of chatting with a live agent to help fully service travelers. The IRIS!(TM) reservation system, released January, 1999, is the first of its kind to provide real-time live agent customer service and sales capabilities over the Internet. Internal sales analysis of IRIS! reservations indicate that live agent interaction significantly increases the ``look to book' new customer bookings ratio. Unlike any other Internet travel reservation system, 800 Travel Systems is able to bring the customer right into the middle of its service and sales organization from anywhere around the world using the 800 Travel Systems' online service at www.LowAirFare.com. ``Sabre is the first CRS (Computerized Reservation System) to integrate online customer support with an e-commerce booking tool,' said Michael Sites, vice president, global agency solutions for Sabre. ``Live chat technology will enable www.LowAirFare.com to significantly reduce its operating expenses and increase its revenues.' This joint-venture product will enable 800 Travel Systems sales agents to answer any questions on-line that may arise during the process of booking an airline ticket. ``We believe that human interaction over the Internet helps overcome some of the obstacles that have caused the 'look to book' ratios in the travel industry to be so low,' said Mark D. Mastrini, Chief Executive Officer of 800 Travel Systems, Inc. ``The ability for a client to have a question answered on a complicated itinerary or to simply have their hand held through the booking process has internally proven that the IRIS! product does in fact help break through some of the boundaries that the e-traveler has to overcome.' ``When Tom Peters emphasized the importance of high-tech-high-touch, he surely meant the travel industry,' underscored Peter Sontag, President of 800 Travel Systems, Inc. ``The ability for an e-commerce customer to interact on-line with a live agent has proven to be the winning combination for the future of on-line travel. With the integration of the Sabre Web Reservations and IRIS! technology, 800 Travel System's customer handling capacity will increase significantly, and we see substantial growth ahead.' biz.yahoo.com Sabre does not run the IRIS system on its Travelocity.com Web site at this time , according to a 800 Travel Systems spokesman. Note the words "at this time", so may be Travelocity will use IRIS at a later time???