Concur has signed an agreement to integrate with hotel shopping tool tripBam, the companies announced Thursday.
When the integration is complete—expected to occur in the third quarter of this year—Concur clients will be able to have hotel bookings automatically shopped by tripBam, according to tripBam CEO and founder Steve Reynolds. TripBam regularly searches for rates at the booked hotel and a selected cluster of surrounding hotels and automatically makes a booking that a traveler can approve or reject when a better rate comes along. Either tripBam or the Concur client's travel management company can fulfill that reservation.
Through Concur, users would be able to choose how those clusters are developed, Reynolds said. Generally, other properties with which the client has negotiated rates would be loaded in first, followed by properties in preferred chains. Companies also can opt to allow travelers to modify their own clusters, though companies "mostly don't allow that to happen," Reynolds said. Users also could opt to monitor rates at only the booked hotel.
When the integration is complete, tripBam also will integrate with Concur's TripLink open-booking service and TripIt, he added.
"Improving hotel attachment has gotten most of the interest on the Concur side," Reynolds said. "They can capture those out-of-program bookings and also bring travelers back into the fold by finding better deals than they can find on their own."
In addition to Concur, Reynolds said four of the top 10 TMCs in North America during the first quarter of this year have embarked on pilot programs with tripBam, though he would not identify them. He also said he has signed several agreements directly with corporations, including some pilot agreements that he hopes later to convert to full agreements, he added.
TripBam transactions during the first quarter grew 93 percent compared with the last quarter of 2013, according to the company. It reports finding a better rate in more than 60 percent of hotel groups searched, with the savings averaging more than $50 per night.