JEDDAH, 13 May 2006 — Stargate Cyber Active celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Jeddah Hilton on Thursday night, with its focus on e-solution for travel providers.

The event assumed significance with e-ticketing becoming mandatory for all airlines and travel agencies by 2007-end.

“The infrastructure for e-ticketing is still to be streamlined in this part of the world, although work is progressing rapidly,” a senior executive of the company told Arab News on the sidelines of the celebration.

“Our all-inclusive suite of software solutions and services automates the fares management and distribution directly over the Internet,” Rashid Al-Mugait, chairman of Riyadh-based Stargate Cyber Active, distributor of Worldspan, said at the event.

A large number of executives of airlines, and travel and tour operators were present at the celebration that was marked by presentations by Stargate Cyber Active’s executives — Ahmad Abu Zulof and Saad Abbas.

They claimed that the company network was linked to all airlines across the Kingdom and worldwide, and travel agencies and tour operators could benefit from its products and services.

Introduced on the occasion was Sledgehammer, described as a breakthrough that enables its users to stay connected. It’s an online, centralized, “Instant Commit,” fare distribution system with advanced market control capabilities. Sledgehammer comprises three modules — Instant Fares-Designer, an airline desktop portal to manage and distribute market, private, net and corporate fares; Instant Fares, a travel agency portal and airline semi-portal for the search of market, private and net fares; Instant Trips, a corporate portal that enables the search of corporate and market fares. Instant Fares’ provides revolutionary electronic procurement and state-of-the-art technology, he said, adding that its latest features include a fare search engine, a booking engine, customer relations and operations management (CRM), and “Backoffice.”

The “Web Engine,” known as the fare search engine, allows buyers and sellers of air travel to search for accurate, up-to-date market specific fares. The booking engine allows buyers and sellers of a travel to search for accurate up-to-date market and fares, and book them.

The CRM is a distinct feature included in the advanced suite of Instant Fares, allowing agencies to manage every aspect of their relationships with their stakeholders.

“The aim of this system is to assist in building lasting customer relationships — to turn customer satisfaction into customer loyalty,” Zulof said.

The Backoffice is the backbone of the booking engine and the CRM forms the all-inclusive Instant Fares professional suite, allowing travel sellers to manage and generate financial transactions and reports. “The Backoffice is enriched with a lot of functionality that will make your travel agency accounting experience friendlier,” he added.

Abbas gave a presentation on “Why e-ticketing.” and explained its various features. “The entire airline and travel trade is rapidly moving toward e-ticketing because of its many advantages to both the industry and the traveling public,” he said.

Marking the celebration was the presentation of awards to Stargate Cyber Active’s five top supporting airlines — Saudi Arabian Airlines, Air-India, Kuwait Airways, Lufthansa and Air France. Five travel agencies receiving its awards were STTB (pearl), Jouf (diamond), Musad (gold), Ahram (silver) and Elaf (bronze).