According to Director of Business Development, Peter Kowal, The Hudson Group has recently deployed its first client who is handling multiple currencies within its local reservation and dispatching system.  “With the deployment of our client in Bucharest, Romania, the full benefit of our ability to manage multiple currencies is now being realized. In this situation, the company manages and displays their fares to clients in Euros, but pays their drivers and runs other reports based on their local Romanian currency, the RON.”  A couple years ago, Hudson provided their clients with the ability to create web sites that would display fares in a currency other than their default or native currency. Kowal adds, “this functionality gives our clients the ability to have operations in multiple countries, yet do business in a common, native, or multiple currencies if desired. I am not aware of any other booking system in our industry with this capability.”

Lyndy Burnham, Hudson’s manager of special projects has been involved with their international deployments and explains further, “The Hudson Group has had the ability to capture reservations in other languages for several years. We have a client in France, who maintains both English and French language web reservation sites.  All reservations flow into a single database. Our system creates a profile for each traveler and remembers their language of choice. All correspondence from the office and web systems are then sent in the travelers preferred language. This includes email confirmations, text and voice messages and even invoices. With this next logical enhancement, we can now deliver confirmations and invoices in any desired currency.”

Burnham and Kowal both explained that currency conversion, especially when supporting multiple currencies simultaneously, can be a complex technology issue but that the user interface in Hudson’s systems is very straight forward.  “Currency conversion rates can be downloaded and updated automatically, if desired, and at a frequency selected by the transportation provider. The currency can also be set manually. There are operational benefits to both scenarios.”  The system will also track currency changes through time, and will know what the conversion rate was at any particular point in history.  The new functionality would allow a UK based company, whose fare structure is in British Pounds Sterling, to quote fares to a corporate account in Chinese yuan but then raise an invoice to the parent company in US Dollars.

The Hudson Group admits that its goal is to become a global leader in reservation, ticketing and dispatch systems for transportation companies. Kowal sums up the new functionality best: “Ground transportation is becoming a global industry. With more providers seeking to join international transportation and reservation networks, doing business across multiple currencies was a certainty. Hudson decided quite some time ago that we were ready to face this challenge and provide the bridge that would allow our clients to be successful, regardless of where in the world their next business opportunity came from.”

For more information, contact Peter Kowal, Director of Business Development, The Hudson Group, Lawrence MA USA.  T: (001) 978.531.1115, E: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)