United Technologies Adds Booking To Intranet Site

<H1> United Technologies Adds Booking To Intranet Site</H1>By Cheryl Rosen

<I>Hartford, Conn. </I>- United Technologies Corp. plans this month to move its travel booking online, as it adds an automated booking system to its existing Travel Home Page intranet site.

The 19th-largest corporate travel account in the United States, with an annual global air volume of $110 million (<I>BTN</I>, July 15), UTC forwards 400,000 telephone calls a year to Carlson Wagonlit, its global agency. That's an average of 3.5 calls per booking, according to UTC corporate travel manager Mike Prado-and a number he intends to slash by letting travelers do their browsing and changing and booking of reservations online.

Already, UTC has seen great interest in its online travel page, located in the purchasing area of UTC's private Internet site and offering four sections of informational material for UTC travelers worldwide. The Information area describes the travel program and its preferred vendors, and answers such frequently asked questions (FAQs, in cyberspeak) as, "What happens if I get to rental-car counter and there is no car for me?" or "What if I have an accident?" The Reservation area offers a hyperlink to UTC's agency, trip information, profiles travelers can update and forward to the agency, comment cards on trips they have taken and a hotel database that can search properties in 38 countries. The Travel-related page offers hyperlinks to UTC's main suppliers' homepages, so travelers can get information on frequent flyer programs and services, and the Travel Advisories area offers daily updates of danger zones by Kroll Associates.

Until now, the travel page offered only e-mail travel requests. "We are working on loading corporate airfares and hotel rates now; there are a lot of programming changes involved," Prado said. "But the usage of the page already is enormous-and we haven't even promoted it yet.