Agency Offers Half-Off Fee For Online Bookings

<I>Minneapolis</I> - A super-regional travel agency has begun offering a 50 percent discount on transaction fees for tickets booked through an automated booking system instead of a reservationist.

Northwestern Business Travel's first beta test customer for the E-Travel automated booking system is the Minneapolis office of Deloitte & Touche, the unit of the consulting firm that helped Northwestern choose its Concord, Mass.-based technology partner.

The system will be made available to other Northwestern customers in May. E-Travel will route requests through a server at Northwestern's headquarters, and then to the Worldspan CRS. The agency plans to add an Internet-based version in July.

Fifteen other corporate customers have expressed interest in trying out the E-Travel system and the new pricing policy after the Deloitte & Touche rollout is complete, said Northwestern Business Travel president Andrea Ritchie.

The agency and Deloitte's consulting staff chose E-Travel from an original list of six potential technology providers that was whittled down to three finalists-TravelNet, ITN and E-Travel. The vendors were judged on a matrix that included such features as architecture, marketplace viability and cost, Ritchie said.

The Northwestern/Deloitte contract is not the first to offer a reduced transaction fee for online bookings, but it might well be the first proposed by an agency. In a recent contract with American Express, the Los Angeles-based Times Mirror Corp. obtained 12 different pricing options, including discounts for electronic bookings, electronic tickets and reservations made through a central reservation office rather than an on-site (BTN, March 17).

Northwestern's contract with Deloitte is simpler, offering only two options: an agent-assisted reservation at one price or a reservation in which agents play no role at all at a straight 50 percent discount. The discount does not apply to on-site offices, Ritchie said.

Deloitte consultant David Hillman said E-Travel was chosen for its "combination of functionality and economics" and that the pilot will include a small group of travelers. While two other Deloitte offices also will "more than likely" pilot the E-Travel system with different agencies, "this is not a corporate program," Hillman said.

He "would be surprised if corporate bookings achieve 15 percent penetration in the next three years," although his expectations for Deloitte & Touche are higher. "Consultants are very good candidates for self-booking tools," he said. "Most of them are on the road and with clients all day, so they tend to make bookings at odd hours. And they have great facility with computers.