travelbasys
            

travelbasys has been a leader in the travel industry and a pioneer in data automation for more than 40 years. Its core system, RBS, was developed with Software AG's Adabas & Natural and is the market-leading back office and administration system for travel agencies all over Germany and Europe. travelbasys has its headquarters in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

From an economic perspective, tourism is supremely important: It’s an essential value driver in the German economy and feeds a complex ecosystem. Each year, Germans generate €96.8 billion in total revenue globally by traveling. In Germany alone, there are around 10,000 travel agencies and more than 3,000 tour operators as well as a large number of IT service providers and content providers who create the offerings and enable the booking systems. travelbasys recognized early on the complexity of the transaction chains and the value of resulting data—in part because the company itself has a complex structure with its two shareholders (TUI and REWE Touristik) and relies on absolute data transparency.

travelbasys was already ahead of its time back in the 90s and had laid the foundation to successfully use data as a competitive advantage. With its Adabas & Natural-based RBS system, the company took over the bookkeeping for an entire industry. Today, the number of systems available in the tourism industry have increased tenfold. The RBS system from travelbasys integrates all of the data silos and establishes a single source of truth for realtime data processing—available for thousands of travel agencies to use. That enables travelbasys to offer its customers a full range of services for bookkeeping, CRM and archiving with over a hundred interfaces—all without the travel companies ever seeing the IT complexity behind the scenes. “They just use the system,” says Peter Tenbusch, CEO of travelbasys GmbH & Co. KG.

But that was no longer enough in 2019.

Connected customers demand more

The landscape has become more complex in recent years, while customer behavior has become more agile and more digital. Customers and service providers urgently want tolook up and manage their data online. For travelbasys, this is a good reason to go further down the road it paved together with Software AG using a new tool: API management.

“Many of our customers and suppliers now want real-time access to certain data online. We want to meet this need as a service provider by opening up our systems,” explains Detlef Ziermann from travelbasys, who monitored the PoC of API Gateway. “In this context, developing these new functions quickly is important, of course, but the areas of security and monitoring are especially crucial for us. Software AG’s API Gateway convinced us on all three counts.”

Opening the door for more connection and new services

Transparency and compliance
travelbasys needed secure access, speed and uniform data to enable communication withcustomers in real time. API management makes all of this possible—all in accordance with data privacy laws. It expands the network travelbasys has already created and integrates the systems of companies and service providers elegantly and securely.

The technology also ensures internal transparency. By connecting its own systems withthose of its shareholders, TUI und REWE Touristik, travelbasys can deliver current financial data like liquidity in real time to their dashboards. This is especially important during a pandemic, when speed and reliability of data exchange have never been more valuable.

The technology also ensures internal transparency. By connecting its own systems with those of its shareholders, TUI und REWE Touristik, travelbasys can deliver current financial data like liquidity in real time to their dashboards. This is especially important during a pandemic, when speed and reliability of data exchange have never been more valuable.

New services
API management opens the door for new services that add value for customers—personalized, automated, high quality and available 24/7. These services include commission accounting, querying sales or order statistics and automated service provider reconciliation as individual packages. travelbasys customers benefit from integrated, demand-oriented services at manageable costs. Customers who wantto use these services can choose between a revenue-based or transaction-based payment model to so that all costs are clear.

Efficiency
travelbasys implemented Software AG's webMethods back in 2014 as part of its transition from mainframe to Linux®, and established the necessary conditions for webMethods API Gateway. “For our new products, we don't even have to reinvent the wheel. We can just reuse individual services and implement them quickly for our customers,” notes Tenbusch. The company and its customers all benefit from a substantial increase in agility and speed with corresponding competitive advantages in a changing market.