BCD Travel and Farelogix are working in conjunction to create a travel content sourcing engine for BCD's travel management company clients, the companies announced today. The technology platform—which they expect to begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2007—calls to mind the American Express Travelbahn and Carlson Wagonlit Travel Symphonie offerings.
"Conceptually, it's going to give them all of those capabilities and a whole lot more," claimed Farelogix CEO Jim Davidson. "It's our entire product line, including the FLX platform, our middle office platform. It has all the links to the sources of content—GDS, Web, direct connect and the private fares engine—and they're integrating it with their selling or booking platform. We will be underneath that and the intent is to give them worldwide capabilities to manage all their transactions to insulate them against any changes."
Davidson said Farelogix and BCD began working on the platform roughly three months ago—around the same time new distribution dynamics entered the corporate travel distribution marketplace
(BTN, Sept. 11).
"Our goal is to insulate BCD Travel customers from the uncertainties surrounding access to travel inventory," said Dee Runyan, BCD executive vice president for products, technology and supplier relations, in a statement. "Farelogix is providing us a part of the technology that will enable us to address the complexities of processing travel transactions for our clients, while also driving efficiencies across our organization and ensuring that we can execute on any inventory-access strategy that a customer might pursue."