Travel Industry: Sandy Proved Cloud’s Value

Plenty of Palo Alto startups over the past few years have incorporated cloud-based computing and data storage. But it’s been an uphill battle to convince some businesses to invest in the cloud when they've already sunk money into traditional technology.

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Now those startups are getting a boost from an unlikely source - Hurricane Sandy. Power has yet to be restored to some areas devastated by the superstorm. For others, all the power in the world won't bring back computers battered by rain, waves and flooding.

But for companies that had switched to the cloud, all of their data remained safe. From medical records to airline reservations, cloud storage saved businesses and their customers untold grief.

The travel industry in particular benefitted from cloud computing.  Traditional travel agencies, host services, even home-based agents all survived Sandy by storing customer information and reservations in the cloud.

Travel Weekly, an industry publication, noted Liberty Travel as an example of one company that survived Sandy because of the cloud. Liberty Travel is concentrated in the northeast, directly in the storm’s path. The morning after Sandy hit, just 27 of Liberty’s 170 locations were open. However, no data was lost and customers received the help they needed. A company official said that most agents were able to work remotely.

Travel Weekly correspondent Kate Rice noted, “Working remotely is second nature to many agents today, particularly for home-based travel sellers, who work in a home office, on the road, at sea or anywhere they happen to be.”

There are several cloud-based companies that serve the travel industry. Each emphasizes data that is backed up and protected with multiple redundancies, including data centers in multiple locations and backup power sources.

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