Booking Vendors Bring Slew Of Options To NBTA

<B> Booking Vendors Bring Slew Of Options To NBTA</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

Much like Orlando in August, developments from booking software vendors are hot, hot, hot and may finally offer travelers and travel decision-makers the functionality, speed and ease of use that they demand. From content, to links with expense or frequent flyer tracking products, automation vendors are delivering added functionality in the more mature versions emerging today.

The latest product to hit the market is Xtra On-Line Corp.'s PowerTrip. However, Internet Travel Network and Sabre BTS are releasing new versions at the National Business Travel Association annual conference and exhibition in Orlando this week, as well as announcing partnerships with other vendors; E-Travel and Sabre are adding content; and TheTrip.com and Biztrav-el.com are enhancing their offerings to try to capture business travel for the small companies they're targeting.

Dallas-based Xtra On-Line last month released its Internet-based online booking system and announced that McCord Travel Management, Chicago, signed on as an agency distributor. PowerTrip booking software is designed specifically for corporations, but the company is relying on travel management partners to market the software. The tool can be used with Sabre, Apollo and Worldspan, with Amadeus to be added later this summer.

"We strongly believe in the agency distribution channel and believe that they can market our product to the 60,000 odd corporations" that could use it, said Bill Diffenderffer, CEO of Xtra On-Line. The developer is focusing its marketing on the largest 2,000 travel spenders.

In addition to McCord and Maritz, which signed on as a distributor last year, Diffenderffer said he anticipates having distributor agreements in place by year-end with several hundred agencies, "including all the big guys."

McCord, also an agency partner of the Sabre BTS offering, said the marketplace is demanding multiple solutions. "The driving forces are that it's multiple CRS and will work on Apollo and Worldspan," essential for McCord's New York and Los Angeles customers, said Bob Brindley, director of marketing for McCord.

Xtra is charging its distributors from $2,000 to $75,000 to license the software, as well as a monthly per user fee ranging from $3 to $12, depending on volume.

To further drive travelers to use the system, Xtra On-Line has forged an exclusive deal with MaxMiles, a frequent flyer mileage tracking program, to track and reconcile points from airline, hotel and credit card programs.

Meanwhile, content is starting to emerge in the latest releases of Sabre Business Travel Solutions and E-Travel.

Leveraging all of its online properties-- BTS, Travelocity and Agent Explorer--the Sabre Group has been partnering with a number of content providers. The result is an area called "business center" that offers restaurant recommendations for serious business meetings or celebrations, local attractions and city reference information, such as the mayor's name and number, all from OnTheRoad.com; fitness center rankings; guides to local customs for various countries; weather; and airport terminal information.

In addition, BTS now integrates maps into its hotel section as part of a partnership with MapQuest. Users can display a map of all hotels with availability in a city and then zoom in to see street detail or zoom out to view the entire metro area, said Pete Stevens, BTS's director of marketing and business planning.

Another thing that the latest version of BTS does is allow users to clone and share trips to help speed the booking of frequent travel destinations and group travel.

"The other thing we're going to be showing at NBTA is push technologies. We really think we've figured out the best way to deliver information to business travelers. For a start, travelers will receive an e-mail about the weather before their trip," Stevens said.

Other prototypes that Sabre plans to show at its booth include synchronization, both with calendars on hand-held computers like 3Com's PalmPilot and with profiles stored in Sabre, and a 3D visualization of data to help corporate executives analyze and understand it.

In addition, Sabre plans to test interest in a wireless networking technology that MobileStar Network is planning to install in 50 airports and 200 hotels by year-end that will allow customers who are equipped with a wireless modem to link up to the network when they are inside an equipped building.

More than 180 corporations are using Sabre BTS products, with 110 installing the booking, and the remaining 70 using the VantagePoint reporting, module.

E-Travel is partnering with Time Inc. to offer its subscribers exclusive access to the Time Research Center Travel Site in New York. Local news and events, restaurant details, visa and passport requirements, health and travel advisories and special market reports will be available through this site, according to Rick Lifsitz, vice president of business development for E-Travel.

Until now, the center's regional business guides have been used internally. As part of the joint venture, the partners have agreed to further develop the content for business travelers.

Access to the site is in beta test with two customers and over 3,000 users for the next two months, Lifsitz said, at which time the partners intend to release it to all customers.

"There will be an additional cost, but part of the beta test is to determine what it should be. We view it as low-cost," Lifsitz said. The partners are trying to establish whether the cost basis should be monthly or per use.

E-Travel began researching content options last year, Lifsitz said, after customers expressed a need for one-stop shopping access to well-edited content.

"We looked at all the large research providers and we weren't satisfied with what we were finding. Some lead to dead ends. Others are repackaging Web-related content, but not providing any added value," Lifsitz said.

Separately, E-Travel plans to release a module to allow corporations to book directly in vendor systems--bypassing the computer reservations systems and their associated costs--in the fourth quarter. Called ETLink, the module will link buyers directly to air, hotel and car rental vendors, according to John Ackermann, E-Travel president.

The company has begun testing with Continental, as well an unnamed hotel and car vendor. "We haven't finalized pricing yet, but we expect there would be no increased costs for any of the end users. The objective is to lower total costs," Ackermann said. While the link will bypass the CRS, settlement will be through the Airlines Reporting Corp., he added. Agencies will likely add a data feed of all direct bookings to their weekly reports.

Finally, E-Travel announced that it secured "several million dollars" in second round financing from a group of venture capital firms including Massachusetts Capital Resources Co., Claflin Capital and The Clarence Funds, all of Boston, and Graystone Capital, Chicago.

Internet Travel Network, meanwhile, signed a strategic alliance with Extensity Inc., its third expense vendor, to develop an end-to-end travel solution. Developers are working on the application interfaces for Extensity, Captura and Portable, with completion expected by year-end, according to Dan Whaley, ITN co-founder and vice president of new business development. ITN last year signed pacts with expense software firms Captura and Portable to integrate their products.

As part of their agreement, Extensity and ITN plan to hold joint sales and marketing activities, including a seminar for decision-makers this fall, according to Elizabeth Ireland, vice president of marketing for Extensity, Emeryville, Calif. The duo teamed up after customers demanded it, she said.

ITN likely will provide the reporting component of the end-to-end system using the online reporting capabilities added to the latest release of ITN Global Manager, version 4.0, as well as the new ITN Manager, a version of the product designed for companies with midsized travel spend and less complex travel policies.

Significantly enhancing the statistical usage details it previously offered travel managers, ITN has integrated Cognos' reporting software to track more than 180 different data dimensions, Whaley said. Managers now can monitor usage, along with policy compliance and violations, vendor usage and total spend. They also can drill down to any level of detail.

While the new reporting will appeal to decision makers, Whaley said the "speed and enhanced usability" are the features users will like most. The redesign has resulted in speed improvements of from two to six times in such areas as seat maps and air availability, Whaley said.

The new version also offers multi-level corporate policy control and enables users to rank air and car rental vendors by specific market.

"This also enables a corporation to have an unlimited number of travel policies that are hierarchical and geographical," said Jeanette Slepian, ITN vice president of sales. "It's truly a global product that can be geographically specific."

One of ITN's 31 Fortune 500 customers has more than 20 different travel policies that have been loaded into Global Manager, she added.

Other enhancements in version 4 include online profile synchronization, ability to store and reuse commonly traveled itineraries, e-mail confirmation enhancements and ability to update user and hotel databases from their desktop.

Targeting the midsize market, ITN Manager offers most of the functionality of Global Manager, except for the multi-level vendor contract and policy customization features. The product is designed for corporations with Airlines Reporting Corp. volume of under $10 million. The price basis remains a design and set-up fee, per transaction cost and annual support charge.

TheTrip.com, meanwhile, is finding an audience for its online booking product with small companies, typically with fewer than 500 employees, according to Antoine Toffa, president and CEO of the Englewood, Colo.-based firm.

Analyzing the market, Toffa sees a need for an Internet booking tool that provides more than technology. So, TheTrip.com offers corporations policy enforcement, reporting and hotel and car discounts it negotiates on behalf of all users. For this service, TheTrip.com charges a set-up fee of $450 and monthly fees ranging from $195 for one to 20 reservations to $1,295 for more than 100.

"The problem now is to get volume," Toffa said of his negotiating strategy. "The goal is to go to suppliers and say, we have 5,000 small businesses using us, what can you do for them?" he explained.

To help in this effort, Toffa has begun marketing to the 2 million small business customers of USWest, which owns a sizeable chunk of Thetrip.com.

In test by several companies over the past three months, TheTrip has signed 10 customers to date. Navigant, the agency spun off from U.S. Office Products, handles all help calls and ticket fulfillment.

Biztravel.com, a Web-booking site that caters to frequent unmanaged business travelers, recently added new features that allow users to book multiple travelers, repeat a previous trip and transfer itineraries to electronic calendars.