TravelBank, a booking and expense platform that incentivizes travelers with rewards cards for beating trip-cost estimates, has added hotel bookings. The company launched as a free expense platform to gain corporate clients and then added air bookings and instituted incentives a year ago to draw in travelers. It aims to corral the spend of small companies in order to negotiate supplier discounts. It began sharing commissions with travel programs last year.
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TravelBank reports that 3.5 percent more people search its bookings via iOS and Android apps than on desktop. However, bookings are split evenly across apps versus desktop.
The hotel content the company has brought in will cover more than 500,000 hotels. TravelBank maintains that travelers are gaining increased incentive opportunities because per-trip spend on hotels tends to be higher than per-trip spend on air. It also has launched a feature called LodgingX to give travelers Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway booking options and to manage incentives for travelers who beat their trip budgets by booking such alternative accommodations or by staying with friends.
Meanwhile, the company also has launched a free analytics dashboard to help companies view travel spend. It's available to companies who request it, according to TravelBank CEO Duke Chung.