Agents Test Worldspan Group Booking

<B> Agents Test Worldspan Group Booking</B>

By Chris Davis

Worldspan is beta testing a new group booking product designed to control group inventory, block hotel space, produce rooming lists and reports, calculate and add margins, mark-up and service fees, and interface with the Worldspan World Ledger 4000 back-office accounting system.

Called Worldspan Group Architect, the product is in beta test at six corporate travel agencies. Company officials said the software should be available in early 1999 in client/server and stand-alone versions, and the software is expected to move to the browser-based Worldspan Go! platform later next year.

Group Architect is designed to free agents from what often is still a tedious manual process. "Many agencies, at best, are doing this through Excel spreadsheets, and some agencies are using large paper charts where if they block 40 rooms at a property, they'll make 40 lines and add names," said Patty Hagar, Worldspan systems analyst. "What we're providing is a systematic way to control inventory in a software package. When they have 40 rooms blocked, they can hold them in Group Architect and in a client-server situation, each agent can access and decrement the inventory so they avoid any oversell situation. They also can run reports from the final tallies they come up with."

Industry watchers said the software does not break totally new ground, but will help Worldspan keep pace with its larger CRS competitors.

Said Rod Marymor, vice president of Cardinal Communications, a meetings technology consulting firm based in Berkeley, Calif., "they're catching up with a trend that has to be reckoned with, and they're getting in the game--or making sure they stay in the game. The competition for this kind of stuff is ridiculous."

Other suppliers agreed that programs already exist in the market that can handle many of the same functions as Group Architect. "Our MeetingPartner already blocks hotel space," said Michael Brophy, marketing manager for Travel Technologies Group, the technology unit of WorldTravel Partners. "So to us, well, we just have another fish in our tank."

But Sabre Group officials acknowledged that while the leading CRS allows agents to book, manage and track block air arrangements, it does not handle block-spaced hotels or cars. "It's one thing Worldspan has that we do not," said Rex Williamson, project manager for Sabre's Block Space Group management tool. "We're aware there's a need for it--and it's something we're looking into."

Pat Crorkin, Worldspan director of travel agency marketing, sales and programs, said the product "will put us in a very good position competitively with Sabre, Galileo and the third-party solutions. When Group Architect comes out, it will have as much functionality as any other product, and with the way we can price the product relative to third parties, we've got some competitive advantage."

Indeed, insiders said it's a necessity for Worldspan to introduce such software to keep pace in an meetings industry experiencing a technological and software boom. "When you have companies like Sabre and Apollo, Worldspan really has no choice but to jump on the technology bandwagon," Marymor said.

In the client-server format, the software allows several agents at the same agency to share data. "All agents on the account have access to this Windows product and have the most up-to-date information concerning who's in which room and how many spaces are left," Crorkin said.

When Worldspan moves Group Architect to the browser-based Go! next year, it will permit agents at different branches of an agency to access information on a group movement. "The ability to share this database is a key piece of functionality that we're going to add," Crorkin said. "We want it in an environment where it's shared branch-to-branch."

Group Architect will carry a one-time setup and license fee of $7,000 for the client-server application--though officials stressed that number isn't written in stone. The exact amount of additional segmented costs will depend on the size of the agency and other variable factors.

The beta test, which began in September, is targeted for completion in January. "This is a little longer beta than we typically have with other products because we want to go through the cycle of group transactions," Crorkin said. "Typically, with an agency-based product that's used on a day-to-day basis, we get more frequent usage than the more cyclical usage with the group side.