ARC announced that
its FareSight corporate air travel data and benchmarking tool is generally
available, following beta tests with "more than a dozen corporate travel
managers" that began last summer. FareSight is designed to leverage ARC's
data to help corporate travel professionals assess their organizations' air
travel patterns, spending and ticket prices, and compare the data with industry
figures.
ARC incorporated
feedback obtained during the beta tests. "The advance purchase ranges were
refined to break out under seven days into three distinct categories to allow
for a more accurate analysis of how last-minute travelers impact air spend,"
according to ARC managing director of product management Doug Mangold.
"The class of service filter was expanded from three to five service
categories to allow for a more accurate analysis of how service class may
impact air spend."
ARC also added a new
"market segmentation filter" to enable users to benchmark against all
ARC ticketing data or only corporate data. A future version of FareSight will filter
data by trip type.
According to a statement
from René Colyer, Exelis Inc. corporate travel department manager and board
member at the Corporate Travel Department Association, the tool uncovers "travel
policy improvement opportunities by comparing our advance purchase and
exchange rates to everyone traveling in the same markets as we are."
FareSight is the
first product from ARCLabs, a research and development initiative.