Sabre Holdings' GetThere subsidiary expects this week to cease selling its DirectMeetings meetings management technology as a separate product and merge its functionality into a standard feature of the DirectCorporate online booking tool. Additionally, GetThere has signed long-rumored deals with one-time rival meeting tech firms SeeUthere Technologies and StarCite Inc. to allow meeting attendees registering through those companies' tools to book travel through DirectCorporate at the point of event registration.
Separately, SeeUthere has signed a similar deal with Outtask to allow its users to book travel through that company's Cliqbook tool.
GetThere executives called the decision a change in distribution strategy based on what they perceive to be the true market for and utility of DirectMeetings. "We've always talked about how DirectMeetings was geared toward ad hoc meetings planned by nonprofessional planners," said Mike Malinchok, who headed DirectMeetings and will remain with GetThere as its director of meeting planning solutions. "GetThere is a company focused on booking trips online. We are and want to be the market leader there and have the highest share. Do we want to spend our focus on cracking the nut of the meeting planning world and figure out what they want, what they need and what will make them use the tool? Why get into that game? We have a simple, straightforward solution, so why not just distribute it? If we want trips, and this is a way to get them, let's put it out there."
All of the functionality included in DirectMeetings will be available in DirectCorporate, Malinchok said. A higher transaction fee will be charged for meeting attendee travel bookings through the tool, he added, on the order of a low double-digit percentage point increase. If a corporation has a $6 transaction fee, he said, they could expect an additional dollar to be charged for a meeting attendee reservation, which has a separate coded identifier.
The alliances with SeeUthere and StarCite have been in development for some time, following the public disclosure last year of an informal agreement between GetThere and StarCite to allow the latter's users, upon specific request, to book through DirectCorporate at the point of event registration
(Meetings Today, Sept. 22, 2003). In March, Ellen Keszler, president of Sabre-owned Travelocity Business, confirmed talks with both SeeUthere and StarCite
(Meetings Today, April 26).Malinchok said the choice of the two meeting technology firms was based on market demand. "If we see the market telling us something else, we will pursue it," he said.
The move also changes the nature of meeting technology competition, with GetThere simultaneously a partner and competitor of StarCite and SeeUthere. "The consolidation we have always predicted has occurred," said SeeUthere COO Stanley Chin. "In every technology market, there eventually are two or three significant players. GetThere is still a competitor, and they will address the portion of the market they see as their sweet spot."
The deals, the financial details and length of which were undisclosed, mark a complete evolution of GetThere's meetings strategy since the firm bought Allmeetings.com in 2000 for $25 million
(BTN, July 31, 2000) and converted its functionality into the DirectMeetings product. In 2001, the company was the first to tie attendee registration and online booking together
(Meetings Today, Aug. 13, 2001) and vowed not to integrate its online booking tool with any other meetings management system. However, as SeeUthere and StarCite continued to grow and draw the attention of corporate meeting buyers, GetThere yielded last year.
"What we've done is dramatic, and it changes the landscape of meeting planning companies," Malinchok said. "We've made our meetings tools accessible to the largest single corporate base without going out to sell to them."
The direct selling of DirectMeetings always had posed a challenge to GetThere, particularly after the Carlson Marketing Group, a sister company of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, ceased distribution of the tool
(Meetings Today, May 12, 2003). However, GetThere recently signed up a handful of large companies to use the meetings technology, including Pfizer Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the latter of which included language pushing the use of the tool in its corporate travel policy
(see story)."With the partnerships with SeeUthere and StarCite, we now have a meetings strategy, not just a meetings product," Malinchok said. "If professional planners want something more robust, they can look at SeeUthere and StarCite, as they can book through our site."
The alliance with GetThere is a noteworthy turning point for SeeUthere. CEO John Chang in 2001 correctly predicted GetThere eventually would integrate with his company's meetings management tools
(Meetings Today, Nov. 12, 2001), and said the new deals are logical offshoots of what he said was increased corporate focus on strategic meetings expenditure management and data consolidation.
"From a tactical perspective, the only way to do true data consolidation is to integrate," Chang said. "GetThere is the market leader, and Cliqbook caters to midsize corporations." Chang posited the further integration of transient and meeting tools could help companies struggling to grow online booking adoption, given the wide acceptance of online registration for meeting attendees.
SeeUthere already had formed similar alliances with booking tools offered by TRX Inc. and Travelport. StarCite, meanwhile, has similar deals with Outtask, TRX and Amadeus E-travel.
Malinchok said current DirectMeetings customers who also use DirectCorporate would see the end of monthly service fees and now would have access to the two new partners.
"We're aware of this, and we're not sure what the bearing on our program will be," said Lockheed Martin travel commodity manager for global hotels and groups and meetings programs Frank Melesky of the alliances. "We know their products have an array of consistent capabilities, but, on balance, it still looks like the GetThere product suits our needs."
Melesky said the decision to choose DirectMeetings as the firm's meetings management tool was made partly because of the tool's ability to link to the DirectCorporate tool. "A very strong criterion was that business reservations could be routed into DirectMeetings," he said. "We needed the two products to work in synch."
Emeryville, Calif.-based Chiron Corp., another user of both DirectMeetings and DirectCorporate
(BTN, Dec. 9, 2002), has not yet determined the impact of GetThere's move on their program, said travel and meetings manager Linda Gray.