<B>Booking Briefs</B>
<B>Datalex Reports Nearly Tripled Revenues, Buys Into Yatra</B>
Dublin-based Internet booking vendor Datalex last month reported 176 percent revenue growth during the quarter ending Sept. 30, its first as a publicly traded company. Revenues totaled $9.9 million, compared with $3.6 million in the year-earlier quarter. Including special cost items, Datalex's net operating loss was $11 million. The company said 68 percent of the quarter's revenues came from e-business applications; its IPO generated $66 million. Datalex also confirmed an $11 million investment for half of Minneapolis-based Yatra Corp. Yatra is developing Datalex-powered corporate booking software and an e-marketplace of sorts for midsize corporate travel purchasers (BTN, May 15). According to Yatra spokesman Chris Berger, the Datalex investment "won't affect the domestic rollout," which is targeted for Jan. 1, "but it will accelerate the international rollout. We expect to be rolled out in Europe and Latin America by probably the second quarter of 2001. Otherwise, it would have been a year later." Berger said Yatra will focus on the U.S. midmarket; Datalex will look to license products to suppliers and the larger corporate market. Currently, six companies are testing the Yatra system, but by Jan. 1 Yatra expects to add 35 more. Talks with suppliers for the second phase of the Yatra rollout, in which suppliers are given the ability to make targeted offers to Yatra users, are "still preliminary," said Berger. Part-owned by Worldspan and the parent company of Swissair, Datalex counts among its customer base the airline-owned Orbitz Web site, Air Canada, American Airlines, Amtrak, British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa and all four major GDSs.
<A NAME="2"><B>E-Travel Reports Record Customer Growth</B>
Waltham, Mass.-based E-Travel Inc. in late October announced a 42 percent increase in its account base during the third quarter, including Ameritrade Holding Co., Keane Inc., Compuware Corp. and others. Altogether, 3Q acquisitions increased the total air volume of E-Travel's customer base by $150 million. To meet the growth, E-Travel increased its headcount by 40 percent, resulting in the physical expansion of its headquarters. Scott Gutz, who is CFO and acting CEO of E-Travel, following the departure of founder John Ackermann, stated, "Our customer acquisition rate is very healthy, and we continue to sign partnership agreements with industry leaders that share our vision for Internet-based travel management."
<A NAME="3"><B>Honeywell, Possibly Largest Account, Sees Res Savings</B>
Morris Township, N.J.-based Honeywell last week became one of the few corporations whose core business is not travel to release a news announcement on usage of an online booking tool. The company said its usage of Sabre BTS "leads Fortune 100 companies" at 70 percent. With about 21,000 of its 30,000 U.S.-based travelers using the system, Honeywell expects to create $4 million in savings within the next year. Reservation transactional costs have dropped by more than 25 percent and average ticket costs were cut by 5 percent to 10 percent, thanks to increased compliance with a lowest available airfare policy. "Our Web-based travel reservation process brings Honeywell to the frontline of automated, 24/7, e-business solutions," said Jim Lee, director of travel and site services for Honeywell's global business services unit. Also in late November, Honeywell announced a special shareowner meeting scheduled for Jan. 10 "to approve its proposed merger with General Electric Co." It is unclear how that merger will affect Honeywell's travel account, which was just awarded to American Express, but it is well known that GE is a crucial account of Carlson Wagonlit Travel. On the booking side, GE also is a Sabre BTS user. Notwithstanding economies of scale, such a combination could become the largest corporate travel account in America, with combined 1999 U.S. booked air volume of $485 million, topping IBM's $460 million.
<A NAME="4"><B>Galileo Partners With Microsoft For Web Apps</B>
Galileo has partnered with Microsoft as an early adopter of its recently announced .Net Framework. Following the initial beta testing of Galileo's Corporate Travelpoint 2.0 booking software during the first quarter of next year, new versions of Corporate Travelpoint will be developed more quickly using Microsoft's .Net. Using Extensible Markup Language and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Galileo's software then would be more easily integrated via the Web with other applications, such as personal information managers and wireless device software. "The strategic partnership with Microsoft gives us the architecture to build next-generation products and rapidly evolve them with the changes in the Internet," said Justin Mette, a consulting engineer with Galileo. Galileo expects to fully migrate to .Net by late next year.