Inside Track: Sabre Developing Rail Booking Capabilities
Sabre Travel Network this week announced it is developing a universal booking platform to include European rail content in the Sabre global distribution system that will deploy in the United Kingdom by year-end. U.K. travel management company Commodore currently is beta-testing the integration of Harry Weeks Travel's Evolvi rail booking product with the Sabre Rail Platform. Evolvi has enabled agencies to book U.K. National Rail services, which encompasses 21 domestic rail operators, via the GDS since October 2006. Sabre, which is developing the platform in its Krakow, Poland, product development center, plans to integrate with the booking products of German rail operator Deutsche Bahn and French operator SNCF—both of which have distribution agreements with European GDS Amadeus—in 2008, and with operators in Belgium, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and North America thereafter.
Accor Puts New Pullman Brand On The Express Track
Multinational hotel company Accor is reviving the Pullman name, launching the brand in as many as 300 hotels targeting the international business travel market by 2015, the company announced in August. The first phase will rebrand 45 Sofitel and Grand Mercure properties in 23 countries to Pullman hotels, named after the luxury trains that ran on British rail lines in the last century. Further development will be rapid worldwide through management and franchise contracts, according to Accor. The company plans to have hotels in key international cities, all offering facilities for large seminars and conventions.
Hotel Sourcing Alliance Ready To Receive Buyer Data
The Hotel Sourcing Alliance, a newly formed business with the goal of analyzing hotel agreements and providing data to both hoteliers and travel buyers, has put the parameters of its analysis in place and now is ready to start courting clients, said the alliance's president and CEO Fernando Avila. The alliance's board—which includes Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Omni Hotels, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Altria Group—recently developed a scoring method for corporate hotel programs. Participating travel buyers can find ways to improve their hotel program content and compliance, and hoteliers will use a score to evaluate deals during the request-for-proposal process. "It will dispel the fog around the RFP process and the whole hotel management practice," Avila said. "Hotels spend a lot of time trying to tell the travel manager to give them data, and at the end, they're getting deals that have very little value." Avila said data gathered throughout the year will have the alliance in full swing by the time negotiations for 2009 hotel programs begin next year.
U.K. TMC Opens New U.S. Office
United Kingdom travel management company The Advanced Travel Partner late last month opened a 2,300-sq.-ft. Houston office as a base to service local customers in the oil and gas industry, including Acergy and Halliburton. In the United States, the travel management company operates as ATP International USA, which encompasses Connecticut-based New Haven Travel Service and Mercury Travel, as well as Long Island, N.Y.-based Kings World Travel. Advanced Travel Partner is part of the GlobalStar agency network.
Amadeus Upgrades Rate-Loading Technology
Amadeus last week said it launched an enhanced Web-based technology solution that files buyers' negotiated fares in its global distribution system, enabling more accurate and quick posting. The FareXpert Filing Platform and XML Fare Data Interface help airlines, consolidators and travel management companies implement negotiated fare results in a graphical user Web interface to access the Amadeus Fare Quote Database, while providing a rate-loading channel that bypasses the conventional method of loading negotiated rates via the Airline Tariff Publishing Co.