MANILA - Software maker Amadeus is expecting to do a relaunch of its Internet Booking Engine (IBE) as part of its strategy to encourage more travelers to book online instead of the traditional method.

IBE is an add-on module to Amadeus' core booking software.

Amadeus provides booking applications for hotels, airlines and vehicle rentals. It has an office in the Philippines and caters to nearly 2,000 travel agencies in the country.

Amadeus Marketing Philippines Senior Solutions Specialist Salvador Pena V said the company will relaunch the IBE in partnership with a payment gateway. He said they are working on the commercial deal and the official relaunch could be done sometime toward the end of the year or early next year.

Though he did not mention the name of the partner company, he said the partnership allows Amadeus to focus on providing its online booking application and ensuring security for online transactions through the payment gateway.

Pena said that they already had the IBE for about two years but very few companies are using it in the Philippines, partly due to lack of an existing payment gateway system.

However, a major issue is also due to fear of travelers to use their credit cards for online transactions.

"But people also want the personal touch so they want to line up in a travel agency office to get more information," Pena said.

Pena said that the potential size of the market for online booking transactions is huge but people have to get past the credit card fraud issue.

He said they are hoping that travel agencies will also help in convincing travelers to use the Internet for travel bookings.

Pena said that travel to and from the Philippines remains huge, especially those that are going out of the country. Many of the continuous travelers are from corporate clients of multinational firms.

Pena said they are expecting that with the growth of travel in the Philippines, Internet online bookings will also grow.

However, he said the company does not expect online transactions to replace face-to-face transactions, though at the very least, it will encourage more people to go online.