European Consortium Goes Direct

The Copenhagen-based corporate purchasing consortium Travelpool Europe has become one of the first travel buyers in Europe to build direct connections for air bookings. It has developed its own system to open links to Scandinavian carriers Nordic Airlink—its second largest supplier, which flies from Stockholm to Copenhagen and Oslo—and Sterling, which flies from Copenhagen to Oslo.

Travelpool Europe members have been using GetThere, but TPE managing director Søren Schødt said TPE Direct provides a quicker, cheaper process and, most importantly, gives users access to lower fares. He said the consortium has to re-book about 65 percent of its reservations through GetThere because quality checking shows it does not pick up the lowest fares. This is mainly because Nordic Airlink and Sterling do not load their cheapest fare types onto the global distribution systems and GetThere does not screen-scrape their Web sites. "Sixty-five percent is too high a figure for online booking," Schødt said.

Travelpool Europe also claims savings in processing costs. Using TPE Direct costs $8 per transaction in internal expenses. There are no agency fulfillment or global distribution costs on top of this and, because the two airlines invoice directly into TPE's back office system, there is no card fee either. Using GetThere is around the same price, but TPE has to factor in the cost of re-booking many flights and, in some cases, has to pay the agency, GDS and card costs as well. According to TPE, the total cost of using GetThere is $32 to $47 per transaction.

Schødt also claims TPE Direct takes less than one minute to make a booking, whereas GetThere takes around 15 minutes because of such features as seat selection.

Travelpool Europe buys travel on behalf of 21 companies with a combined annual spend of $27 million. One of the earliest users of online booking tools in Europe, it repeatedly has pronounced itself disappointed with their quality, leading it to switch suppliers several times. This is its second period with GetThere.

Floyd Widener, vice president of corporate EMEA for Sabre Travel Network, which owns GetThere, said, "we are doing some work on a low-cost carrier solution for 2005 so we can offer a greater range of content. This is a customer requirement we are in the process of addressing."

Travelpool Europe has found it relatively straightforward to introduce TPE Direct because the routes between the three Nordic capitals account for 35 percent of its spend. However, Schødt said his preferred long-term solution would be to access all content through GetThere and Sabre. Since this is unlikely to happen anytime soon, however, the booking tool providers have to look at accessing budget carriers either through screen-scraping or direct connections.

Widener said the latter option is available but needs more industry thought. "GetThere has had direct connect technology for many years, which we can activate if the circumstances warrant it," he said. "The fact it has been developed and not used is a question of who pays for it. The economic model needs to be agreed."

Responding to the charge that it takes 15 minutes to make a booking through GetThere compared with less than one minute on TPE Direct, Widener said: "If you set up the templates correctly, it takes less than two or three minutes to make a booking."