<B> Buyers Seek Better Data</B>
By Mary Ann McNulty
Travel managers from more than six large corporations representing travel spend approaching $1 billion held their first meeting late last month to identify the data disparities they find most troubling around the globe and begin to the address the problems.
The effort represents the second recent initiative to drive a travel data standard for corporations. Prism Group Inc., an Albuquerque, N.M., consulting firm that collects and consolidates data for nearly a dozen large corporations, last month published its own data hand-off specifications called Prism Xport, including a white paper and report card on the 12 largest agency, third-party and global distribution system back-office accounting systems (<I>BTN,</I> May 17). While the travel managers eventually plan to talk to the Prism Group about ways to resolve their data dilemmas, they first want to prioritize their collective problems and bring them to the attention of the major back-office accounting systems.
The corporations, all customers of International Software Products of Alexandria, Va., began discussing the need to form a committee several months ago (<I>BTN,</I> April 12). After creating this list of data priorities, the group now intends to go to the global distribution and agency back-office accounting systems to see if they can collect the critical elements the corporations need, said Cheryl Hutchinson, travel manager for American Management Systems, Fairfax, Va. Besides Disney and AMS, representatives from Seagram & Son, Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc. and Warburg Dillon Reed were among those attending the Fairfax, Va., meeting. ISP executives did not attend as they want customers to identify their problems on their own.
One of the problems on the travel managers' hit list, Hutchinson said, is that some GDSs or agency back-office systems around the globe collect only the person's last name and first initial instead of their first name. "We need their first and last names as a unique identifier," Hutchinson said.
"A lot of agencies are not reporting DKS or account numbers" that allow corporations to separate spend by business unit, she added.
Fare basis codes and tour codes also appear to be used sporadically around the world. The problem, she said, is that the only way companies can determine if they received their negotiated discount is by paying the airline to conduct an audit. "We'd like to do our own audits."
There also is a "huge debate" on origination and destination versus segment data coming out of various systems. Form of payment isn't always collected.
"There is a real inconsistency between the plated carrier and the flown carrier," Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson said she has been aware of the data inconsistencies for the past couple of years. "I didn't know what I didn't now," but more sophisticated airline deals and global consolidation have forced the problems to the forefront for her and colleagues. With just one agency in the United States, travel managers thought they had good data.
But in combining data from several agencies around the globe, they're noticing problems. Data errors are so significant, that in some cases they can impact preferred carrier selection, she said. "Europe is the weakest area. We don't know if people are not giving data to us because they've never been asked or the systems are unable to deliver it."
The committee plans to talk to Prism and others to share ideas about how best to identify and resolve these data dilemmas. The committee also hopes to bring ACTE and NBTA together on this problem to devise an industry solution because they are "fed up" with the issues, Kathy Samuel, director of travel operations and administration for Disney Worldwide Services Inc., Burbank, Calif., told participants during a data session at the ACTE meeting in Washington. But Hutchinson said the group only wants to move forward after it understands the CRS and back-office challenges.
After Samuel spoke, Prism's Les Baker asked to attend the meeting, but was rebuffed. Later, he told BTN that the Xport format is an open standard, available free to all. He understood that copies of the standard and a white paper were to be distributed at the ACTE session. "Instead, they stood up and told the audience about a new standard," said Baker. "If someone wants to do something better, we're open to it." But to close the meeting now and then open it later leaves questions about what happened during the closed session.
Unaware of the efforts of ISP customers, Hewlett-Packard Co. travel manager Phil Wilson said his big concern is that two different data layout specifications might emerge from these independent efforts, further complicating an already challenging problem.
"Prism is at least trying to have the layout of data the same. Then we'll work with agencies on consistency, timely delivery, accuracy and definitions," he said.
Consolidating data from 20 agencies around the globe, H-P has learned that the definitions of everything have to be consistent to get the most accurate data.
While both camps are trying to resolve similar problems, they've taken different paths. Meanwhile, both are looking to yet a third, much larger industry effort, called OpenTravel Alliance, to see how embracing the XML language might impact their efforts.