The OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) published its Version 1 specifications that gives the travel industry one universal format for collecting and exchanging customer preferences among airlines, hotels, car rental companies, tour operators, travel agencies, and related services. The OTA customer profile has innovative features to make life easier for travelers. The common format allows the travel industry and its web sites to collect information on identification and preferences only once and exchange it with suppliers of travel services as well as their intermediaries. The specification lets customers define collections of travel service in terms of their own varied needs, such as business travel or the annual church retreat. OTA Version 1 also contains comprehensive privacy features that enable the customer to control any transfer of personal data. The built-in controls allow only specified parts of the profile to be exchanged. The specifications include DTDs, as well as many sample OTA messages. The drafts of these that were issued in February 2000 generated comments from all over the world, from both inside and outside the travel industry. The final specifications released today incorporate these, which have significantly strengthened Version 1. They can be freely downloaded from www.opentravel.org. OTA participates in the ebXML initiative to develop a single XML message infrastructure to facilitate communication between different businesses and industries in different countries. ebXML used OTA’s draft sample messages as part of its proof of concept tests at its May meeting in Brussels, Belgium. As a further contribution to ebXML, OTA is providing its Version 1 specifications. OTA is keen to align its specifications with those in other industries, including the work of the CPExchange initiative, and sees ebXML as an effective way of doing this. With over 150 members representing influential names in all sectors of the travel industry, including air, car, hotel, travel agencies, technology providers and other travel related suppliers, the Alliance is comprised of five work groups air, car, hotel, leisure supplier, and non-supplier. These groups, together with an interoperability committee to coordinate their efforts, are developing open Internet-compatible messages using XML data terms. www.opentravel.org