Hotel service provider HRS has launched Paperless Travel,
a service that consolidates invoices for all a corporate client's hotel stays.
Hotels send HRS the invoices by fax, e-mail or other methods, and HRS digitizes
them and matches the billed data with booking data already in the system. If
the room rates don't match, HRS goes back to the hotel to resolve the issue.
The invoice database also can upload data to expense reports
and clients' accounting systems and form the basis for value-added-tax recovery
claims, HRS Europe, Middle East and Africa vice president for corporate sales
Mathias Warns told BTN at the recent
Business Travel Show in London. "We are already operating Paperless Travel
in Italy with some medium-sized clients, and now we are in a pilot with some
big clients," said Warns. "After that, there will be a strong
ramp-up."
HRS receives 80 percent of invoices the first time it
asks hotels for them, a figure that is rising weekly, according to Warns, as
hoteliers become familiar with the process. Once HRS has chased hotels, the
figure rises to 98 percent.
HRS also is steering clients toward virtual cards to
improve compliance and reduce fraud. Sending "real" corporate or
lodge card numbers to front desks to confirm bookings relies on the honesty of
hotel staff, Warns said, adding that virtual cards also will improve the
automated matching of booked and billed data. At present, fewer than 5 percent of
HRS hotel bookings use virtual cards.
HRS launched a relationship with American Express
Global Business Travel at the end of last year, Warns said, and deals with
another two of the top four global TMCs are in their final stages. In one case,
said Warns, "we will exclusively provide all hotel content outside the
global distribution systems." BCD Travel has alluded
to a closer relationship with HRS.
"Our strategic goal is for TMCs to
outsource their hotel activities to HRS," said Warns. As part of that
strategy, HRS is recruiting aggressively to expand its consulting team from 70
to between 110 and 120 by the end of 2016.