Buyers To Define Folio Data

<FONT SIZE="+3"><B>Buyers To Define Folio Data</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

<I>Chicago</I> - Members of a task force tackling the issue of hotel folio data agreed at their first meeting that before a standard can be set, travel buyers need a consensus on which data elements they need.

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the National Business Travel Association Hotel Folio Data Steering Committee, which met here last week, is attempting to develop standards that hoteliers and corporate card vendors can use to electronically report individual charges for meals, lodging and other categories (BTN, Oct. 14). Although corporate travel decision makers have been calling for hotel folio data for more than a decade, travel executives contend the problem is intensifying as corporations automate the expense reporting process.

About 40 representatives from credit card companies, hotel chains, expense management software firms, travel agencies and reservation systems met with corporate purchasers for more than four hours at the meeting. As each participant briefly described the impact a hotel folio standard would have on their business, everyone recognized the complexity of the matter, with uncertainty over such issues as whether most companies need line-item detail of every charge or just a summary, and what travel decision makers are willing to do to get this data.

One of the committee's first tasks will be to survey its memberships to itemize and prioritize data needs, said Gary Di Vincenzo, committee co-chair and manager of aviation and travel services for Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. in Collegeville, Pa. He expects the survey to be developed by mid-February.

A second task force is charged with looking at the technological issues of passing data through to credit card vendors, and a third will develop a white paper on reference terms to bring everyone up to speed. Drafts of all task force reports are due at the next meeting, slated for mid-March in Dallas.

Terrell Mellen, executive director of ACTE, said the group identified others that need to join the effort, including "acquirers, processors, property management system providers, interfacers and other associations." Committee members will be contacting them to seek their involvement at the next meeting.

In a separate development, the American Hotel & Motel Association announced plans to create computer interfacing standards-perhaps as early as next April-to accelerate the lodging industry's use of technology and lower costs. "Inexplicably, as we approach the 21st century, there is no standardization for the interconnection of computerized systems and subsystems within the hospitality industry," said Bill Fisher, AH&MA president and CEO. The standardization effort is being funded with $160,000 from AH&MA's American Hotel Foundation, American Express, CynterCon, IBM, MICROS-Fidelio Software GmbH & Co KG, Microsoft, the National Restaurant Association and RJ Reynolds.