B-there.com Links With Worldspan, Datalex
<B> B-there.com Links With Worldspan, Datalex</B>
By Chris Davis
Meeting planners and attendees now can access real-time airline availability information and book tickets at negotiated group rates when they log on to group housing and registration Web site b-there.com, thanks to its recent agreement with Worldspan and travel booking supplier Datalex.
The site will add interfaces to the other major CRSs--Sabre, Galileo and Amadeus--by the end of the year.
Eventually, b-there.com hopes to function as a single point of sale for an attendee's air, hotel and car rental reservations, said Peggy Lee, CEO of the site.
B-there.com's announcement followed word from competitor Passkey.com of an alliance with Sabre to implement a similar capability (Meetings Today, Aug. 2). But unlike Passkey.com, which received financial backing from Sabre as part of its alliance, b-there.com has not had any investment from a CRS or airline. Instead, it is a technology spinoff of Westport, Conn.-based Lee Travel Group, of which Lee is president.
To use the booking capability, planners or Lee's agents first load their negotiated meeting airfares into Worldspan. Attendees and planners then can book their own travel on the site.
The Web site first linked with Worldspan, Lee said, because "they're the most advanced online interface of private fares. But, obviously, we need all the CRSs."
Lee sees the company's primary market as "companies that are comfortable with technology and booking online, like high-tech companies, obviously, but also pharmaceutical and medical firms." That represents a change of direction for the online group housing sites, which heretofore had been pitching their wares primarily as a tool for associations booking very large, even citywide, events. The focus on corporate meetings is long overdue, said meetings technology consultant Jeffrey Rasco, president of Rasco & Co. of Wimberley, Texas.
"For way too long, meetings technology has focused on the association side of things," Rasco said. "Corporate planners have struggled with homemade tools or very expensive customized packages. They've been ignored, while the fact is that they manage millions of dollars in business. They may only do regional sales meetings of 10 attendees, but they may plan 800 of those--or 8,000."
The problem, Rasco said, usually lies with the company's internal technology, as one-size-fits-all software products sometimes don't. "IT often just doesn't speak the same language as planners," he said.
The growth of such alliances can make corporate planners' jobs easier in the long run by allowing them to get a better handle on their attendees' air itineraries.
Without real-time information, planners often aren't aware of changes attendees have made in their air reservations, but "this helps bridge that gap," Rasco said.
Still, corporate use of sites like Passkey.com and b-there.com would necessitate a change in their existing style of booking groups.
At Seattle-based Safeco Corp., for example, manager of incentives and conferences Ken Pickle doesn't expect his groups to bite. "We handle all attendee booking, because we need to directly monitor who actually is signing up," he said. "We assign rooms in priority order based on when they get their registration forms in, so they're pretty good about sending them back."
However, Rod Marymor, vice president of Berkeley, Calif.-based meetings technology consulting firm Cardinal Communications, believes the b-there.com and Passkey.com deals will signal more meetings technology alliances and mergers.
"There's a market that wants real-time booking for air travel, and those that are in the best position to provide it are Sabre, Worldspan and Apollo," Marymor said. "But they don't have the Internet front ends that these Web sites do. It's a match made in heaven.
"Nobody wants to have a whole bunch of little companies that each do one thing. It's like the technology industry as a whole--many small operators are finding better ways to do things. They'll get bigger by acquiring or being acquired themselves.