The Mark Travel Corporation Heads Solution to
Advanced Passenger Information
MILWAUKEE, Nov. 27, 2002 -- The Mark Travel Corporation is pleased to announce
the development of a solution for travel agents to easily and efficiently
collect Advanced Passenger Information (API) for international charters.
TMTC is the only tour operator that has developed an application to pre-collect
API.
U. S. Customs and Immigration now requires API from all individuals destined
to any place outside the United States and/or arriving into the United States.
This government mandate applies to all individuals traveling by air Jan.
1, 2003 and beyond.
Required API for both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens includes:
- Full given passenger name (first, middle, last) as appears on birth
certificate or passport,
- Date of birth,
- Gender,
- Address,
- Citizenship,
- Country of residence,
- Document type (i.e. driver's license, birth certificate, passport),
- Passport number (if traveling with passport),
- Passport expiration date,
- Passport issuance date and
- Country issuing document.
Beginning Nov. 20, 2002, TMTC will begin to pre-collect API via all booking
systems for international charters.
"To better serve all customers and prevent unnecessary delays from occurring
during airport check-in, we realized that collection of this required information
at the time of booking would result in smoother operations," said Ron Jacobs,
vice president and general manager owned brands for TMTC. "As always, our
mission is to provide the best vacation experience from start to finish."
In a recent meeting of representatives from the U.S. Customs Service, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and charter airlines in Washington,
D.C., Ron Priddy, president of the National Air Carrier Association, who
represents many of the U.S. charter air carriers, commended Mark Travel's
representatives for being an industry leader in providing solutions for
these new data requirements. He stated, "The data elements are required
by law. Mark Travel is wise in not wishing to delay informing their customers
of the necessity of this information until the passengers arrive at the
airport. Thus, we simply must make our best effort to collect the data at
the point of sale and through our industry partners, the travel agents.
We commend Mark Travel for providing a program that makes it easy."
TMTC has created a user-friendly API screen that will allow travel agents
to easily and efficiently enter the required information once the booking
is confirmed. With a travel agent pre-collecting API, their customer is
not additionally inconvenienced while traveling.
In addition, to make the travel agent's life easier, TMTC will also
provide the travel agent with a listing of previously made reservations
that require API data. Although agents will then have to contact these passengers
to collect the API, they will not have to go through their files to identify
them, thus saving time. Once the API is collected, travel agents will not
need to call TMTC to relay the API data as TMTC has developed a method in
which travel agents can call their own booking record forward and load it
themselves for individual travelers and groups.
In order to support travel agents further, TMTC has set up an API e-mail
address (api@marktravel.com) to
answer any questions.
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TMTC is headquartered in Milwaukee. Founded in 1974, the company employs
more than 1,800 individuals in 15 offices worldwide. The vacation companies
of The Mark Travel Corporation include such well-known names as Adventure
Tours USA, AeroMexico Vacations, ATA Vacations, Blue Sky Tours, Funjet
Vacations, MexSeaSun, MGM MIRAGE Vacations, Mountain Vacations, Showtime
Tours, Southwest Airlines Vacations, Town & Country Tours, TransGlobal
Vacations, Travel Charter, United Vacations, US Airways Vacations and
Vegas and More.
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