The Netherlands-based company, which describes itself on its website as the leader in the European market for automated customer contact, recently signed an agreement with Schipol Airport in which the airport has outsourced its notifications to Sound of Data.

CEO Jeroen van Velzen said this then allows Sound of Data to sell on the data to OTAs in the form of SMS service alerts to their customers. “This gives OTAs a new service model. OTAs have been focused on transactions only, and don’t do anything about retention.

“With this, they can offer a customer service to their customers.”

The SMS alert, which is integrated into the booking engine of the OTA or TMC, gives customers information such as check-in counter, gate number and luggage belt and allows OTAs and TMCs to charge a premium fee for this service.

“The revenue these days is in ancillary services,” he told WIT. 

Van Velzen said the company was looking at Asia as a market to expand to. “There is definitely more mobile activity in Asia and it’s a question of getting the right flight data out of Asia.

“Because of our large customers, we want legal data – the real feeds – and not scrape content. 60% of iPhone applications use illegal data, we can’t afford that.”

Van Velzen, who was the co-founder of Mobile2Pay, a mobile payment and sales platform, before joining Sound of Data, said that the industry was still not quite there yet in terms of transactions on mobile.

“However if you get the game right, and understand the context of your customer, you can get into transactions. You need a mobile moment for transactions.”

He said that hotels and car rental were the obvious candidates for the first transactions.

However the Sound of Data would stay focused on flights. “We want to supply data that gives context and defines where you are on your trip. This can create service opportunities.”

He said the company would get into transactions in 2011.

Featured image credit (Woman using her Mobile Phone, Night Light Background): Ockra/iStock