High-Tech Helpers for Vacationers

What’s coming up for travelers, technologically speaking, in 1987 and beyond?

One of the new amenities will be an electronic voice mail system option at some hotels.

Hilton will be testing such a device at one of its new properties next year. It’s expected to be the model for all future Hilton electronic voice mail systems.

The computerized system is designed to enable each guest to record and receive messages through the room phone by using any touch-tone phone any hour of the day.

In effect, this system will answer your room phone when you cannot or you’re not there and play a personally recorded message. Incoming calls can be played back through the room phone by using an individually created four-digit security code. If you are away from the hotel you can call your room from any touch-tone phone, cite your code and get your messages.

In addition, guests will be able to change their messages at any time to let others know of their whereabouts. At the end of each stay the guests’ messages will be erased.

“This direct message system will allow callers to leave a message of any length and in any language, so there is more accuracy than in hotel operators taking the messages,” said John Brinker, corporate director of communications for Hilton.

A computerized dashboard navigational map being tested by National Car Rental System may be another new option for travelers. Called Etak, the map system is mounted on a four-inch video screen above the dashboard and comes with an electronic compass and a map data base.

Basically, the map can help drivers find an unfamiliar destination and alternate routes if a primary route is filled with traffic. “You can locate the next off ramp on a freeway or another way to get to your destination,” said Richard Saunders, director of operations for National at LAX.

The system employs nine cartridges with different map views of the Los Angeles area (a similar test is being done in San Francisco). After you put in a cartridge you punch buttons on the side of the dashboard to register the address you want. Your location on the map will be shown by a blinking arrow, with a blinking star indicating your destination. Moreover, a digital read-out will show how close you are getting to your destination within .1 mile.

“This distance is measured by a straight line,” Saunders explained, “so it can be off a little if you’re going through side streets.”

Another feature of the system is that you can change the focus of each cartridge on the screen, going from an overview of a 40-mile perspective to 1/8-mile focus. In this fashion you would be able to compose your itinerary over an entire city area and then pinpoint a specific neighborhood.

While National is determining the results of this test that is slated to end in January, including what it might charge for this new feature, work is being done that might enable the system to use a disk drive instead of cartridges. “The disk would hold a great deal more information, and might even have the Yellow Pages of a city so you could look up addresses and phone numbers. You also wouldn’t have to change cartridges,” Saunders said.

Sheraton and Avis will be testing a remote check-in service at an Avis airport location during the first few months of 1987 whereby you could be checked in at your hotel while still at the airport. “This is the first program of its kind in the travel industry,” said Thomas McNicholas, senior vice president of systems marketing and development for Avis.

After providing your name and credit identification, the computer link-up between Avis, Sheraton’s reservation center and the individual property would effect the confirmation in less than a minute, McNicholas said. When you arrive at the hotel, all you would have to do is pick up your key at the concierge’s desk, bypassing any lines at the front desk.

The plan is that Sheraton’s guests would not have to be an Avis renter to use the remote check-in service. This policy, however, is likely to change if not enough such people rent cars. “Our objective is to rent cars. Eventually, it will be necessary to rent an Avis car to use this service,” McNicholas said. “It would also simplify giving credit information, as we would already have it.”

International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) has come up with some new wrinkles for member airlines. One measure, developed with ARC (the domestic airline organization), is a computer-generated multipurpose automatic document that can be issued as an excess baggage ticket, special service ticket, tour order, prepaid ticket or miscellaneous charge order.

These documents had been written out by hand and not handled by computer, said Ken Sanford, senior manager-passenger services for IATA in Montreal.

IATA carriers have had a standard industry boarding pass, but a new bar code reading developed for these passes allows them to be read automatically. This feature, Sanford said, enables airlines to keep better track of passengers, which means improved security. “This is an automated means by which airlines can learn of passengers who have checked in baggage but don’t show up.”