Online booking tool providers are stepping up their attempts to adapt their products to the demands of the fragmented and complex European corporate travel market, but, while making strides, no vendor has developed a pan-European online booking solution.
Recent improvements include the creation of more content, ranging from all-important rail inventory to independent hotels, fourth-cabin airline seats and electronic airline passes. Greater attention also is being paid to increasing the sophistication of policy control. The introduction of second-generation technology in some of the tools, using more versatile forms of development language, is starting to provide the greater flexibility the market has craved.
The slower growth of booking tools in Europe has long been attributed to a belief that they are insufficiently sensitive to diverse local needs. Now the view of providers and the experts who work with them is that they have successfully addressed most concerns, even if still more needs to be done. "The majority of vendors are adapting to key European requirements, but there is not yet a single tool that can be regarded as the complete solution for Europe," said Emmanuel Guirado, vice president of product development for the American Express Interactive Travel Group.
"I totally agree," said Floyd Widener, vice president of corporate for EMEA at Sabre, which owns U.S. market leader GetThere. "There is no one tool."
Guirado thinks the main inhibitor has been that although the tools all claim to work with any global distribution system, their interfaces work better with some than others. Widener identified GetThere's main weakness in Europe as the lack of rail content outside of the United Kingdom, a shortcoming Sabre is working to overcome. Cendant's Travelport and French companies KDS and Traveldoo also acknowledged that no tool has emerged as the outstanding leader. Johnny Thorsen, Travelport EMEA general manager, said his product's main failing is the lack of hotels available on global distribution systems—a much bigger problem in Europe than in America. Travelport shortly will address this by integrating content from three Cendant-owned hotel Web sites: Lodging.com, Hotelclub.com and Ratestogo.com.
However, for Jean de Durfort, head of partner management at Amadeus E-Travel, it is the detailed content demands of each country that make Europe so tricky a marketplace for the booking tools. Taking Germany as just one example, de Durfort cited the need to have the inventory of Die Bahn (German rail), recognition of membership of Lufthansa's Senatory frequent flyer class, which carries various wait-list clearance privileges, and the ability to book Lufthansa's Pay As You Fly program. In addition, E-Travel provides invoice information in the format required by AirPlus, the dominant payment card in Germany.
Another travel player to have become involved is Hogg Robinson, owner of the Business Travel International partners in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and numerous other markets. After early, unsuccessful forays into building online booking tools in the mid-1990s, Hogg Robinson decided to switch to being a consultant rather than a provider in this area. Now it has changed its mind again. Having built an online hotel booking tool a couple of years ago, it has launched an airline component also designed completely in-house.
"We were getting fed up with the deliverables in the U.K. market," said Bill Brindle, director of technology for BTI. "Everything was either over-engineered or didn't fit our clients' processes. The nail in the coffin was when none of the tools could book the popular fourth premium economy cabin concept [such as British Airways' WorldTraveller Plus], a deficiency now rectified by most booking tools."
The key dilemma facing U.S.-based travel managers is whether it is worth introducing booking tools in Europe now, in spite of their admitted imperfections. If it is worthwhile, a further question is whether to roll out the same product that is used in the United States, tender separately for Europe or introduce different tools in different European markets.
Not surprisingly, the views on this subject tend to correspond to the interests of the person uttering them. "I do not consider it a crime to have several different solutions in Europe," said Yves Weisselberger, KDS CEO.
Traveldoo CEO Nabil el Aroussi concurs, adding it is easy to consolidate data reports from more than one tool.
Amex's Guirado said it depends on which combination of countries a company has selected for rollout in Europe. For instance, although he considers KDS to be generally the best booking solution in Europe, followed by Amadeus E-Travel's Aergo, Guirado regards GetThere as a strong contender in the United Kingdom, although weaker on the Continent. "I advise a combination of tools across Europe, using a partner to help with consulting and implementation," he said.
No less surprisingly, Sabre's Widener advocates using a single tool globally. "We may be missing a taxi service in Norway," he said, "but if you look at our clients saving 15 percent on their total global spend by booking GetThere, then not having that taxi company in Norway is not going to make a big difference. Don't waste time by diversifying your approach." The ability to book special airport taxi transfer services is a particular requirement in Scandinavian markets.
Widener cited as one happy multinational customer Hewlett-Packard, which now uses GetThere feeding off a variety of GDSs in 11 countries. However, el Aroussi points to Traveldoo winning the Philips account from GetThere in April, citing greater adaptability to European needs as the reason. Widener rejects this suggestion. "We lost Philips because we did a very poor job of account management when our management was changing in North America," he said.
One issue on which all the competitors are agreed is that booking volumes and client numbers are booming. However, precise figures are scant. GetThere has just become the first tool provider brave enough to announce transaction numbers in Europe. It said it handled 30,811 in June, up 148 percent on the same month in 2003. Second-quarter numbers were up 136 percent, and Widener expects 3Q to be even better.
E-Travel did not offer any figures but claimed "three-figure" growth. Weisselberger said KDS has between 600 and 700 customers, double the level of one year ago. Of that number, 80 to 100 are direct clients. Traveldoo—which also includes as clients Sony Europe and Dell—and i:FAO, whose biggest client is Siemens, claimed 1,600 and 2,000 customers, respectively, most of them small and medium enterprises booking through agency-overbranded products.
Geographically, volumes are strongest in northern Europe, with Scandinavia and the United Kingdom leading the way, followed by Benelux and Germany. E-Travel reported its fastest growth in France, switching to online booking now that it is possible to book rail. Spain and Italy still lag well behind. "There is no self-service culture in these countries," de Durfort said. However, he believes Spain will catch up as a result of Iberia Airlines moving to zero commission for travel agents, a phenomenon that is proving a force for change in several other European markets.
Among the recent enhancement introduced by online booking providers in Europe are the following:
Travelport
Travelport launched in Europe in June. It has incorporated various European content requirements, such as Web-sourced low-cost carrier fares and the premium economy classes operated by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. However, the most important feature for European travel buyers, according to general manager of EMEA Johnny Thorsen, is Travelport's enhanced policy capability. "The policies in first-generation tools were either black or white," Thorsen said. "Policy rules have become more complicated, so we allow customers to ask as many questions as they like."
One example is that full coach fares often are similar to business class fares in continental European markets. A customer could set parameters so that if the business class fare is no more than 10 percent higher than coach, the traveler could fly business class instead. It also can recognize if, as occasionally happens in the restructured European short-haul market, a business class fare is actually cheaper than economy class and switch accordingly. Similarly, policy can be programmed to book a nonrefundable ticket on a low-cost carrier only if it is a pre-determined amount cheaper than a flexible ticket on a mainstream airline. One area of content that Travelport does not have is rail. Thorsen said other booking tools do not properly integrate rail, and Travelport is seeking a more sophisticated solution.
GetThereGetThere now is available in English, French and German, with Spanish under consideration. It enables fourth cabin class booking, plus Web fares. It also provides access to U.K. rail through a partnership with Thetrainline, which provides the U.K. rail content for the other booking tools
(BTN, March 15), as well. It has scheduled full access to SNCF (French rail) for 1Q next year and is developing non-GDS hotel content.
Aergo (Amadeus E-Travel)Aergo provides comprehensive rail coverage. According to E-Travel, rail accounts for 57 percent of all business travel bookings made offline and online in France, as well as 28 percent in Germany and 25 percent in Sweden. It also provides fourth cabin booking capability, plus various special fares and passes throughout Europe.
KDSKDS enables fourth cabin bookings and claims to book all low-cost carriers, French rail, Die Bahn and U.K. rail.
TraveldooTraveldoo provides bookings on French rail, U.K. rail and Japanese rail. It also provides travel passes and flat fares with Air France, Alitalia, KLM, Lufthansa and SAS. It has the ability to search fares from neighboring airports, even if in a different country. It is available in 10 languages and can list policy in different countries only where it varies from main global policy.
Cytric (i:FAO)Cytric provides bookings on Die Bahn and French rail. A U.K. rail offering is pending. It also provides non-GDS fares and supports the connection to SAP's human resources and expense management systems.