CWT In Travel Portal Pilot

<B>CWT In Travel Portal Pilot</B>

By Amon Cohen

Carlson Wagonlit has shown major customers the pilot of a corporate travel portal, called Cairo, intended to be a one-stop site for managers, bookers and travelers alike. It will be beta tested with two clients beginning in January and released generally shortly afterwards.

Carlson Wagonlit executive vice president for global sales and account management Liliana Frigerio conceded that none of the individual elements of Customized Applications Internet Related Operations are particularly new. The main selling point of the portal, she said, is that it offers an integrated approach for companies to manage their travel programs online, instead of having to bundle together the products from disparate Web sources. It also will remove the perpetual headaches companies experience in trying to maintain their own travel intranets. "Large customers may already have a travel page on their intranet, but they can add to it considerably by taking pieces from our portal," said Frigerio. "There are also many companies that lack the human or financial resources to do this themselves, so Cairo is ideal for them."

The portal is divided into five sections. Clients can opt to have as many or as few of them as they wish. Pre-Trip covers traveler information, such as schedules and destination and airport guides. Next comes the booking section, offering a choice between Carlson Wagonlit's e-mail trip request system, CWT@visor, or an online booking tool. The company claims it can plumb in the client's own choice of booking tool. Failing that, the standard product will be Wave from French company KDS, with which CWT has been building a relationship over the past three years. "Wave is our recommended self-booking tool, because it works with multiple GDSs," said Frigerio. "But we will plug in whatever the client has chosen."

The third section, En Route, allows travelers to amend itineraries while traveling and is intended to include Wireless Application Protocol functionality. Next comes Post-Trip, providing travel managers with online access to management information, plus the ability to look up invoices and manage complaints. Finally, General Services provides a profile management tool.

Also planned is an e-bidding facility for putting city pairs and other travel requirements out to tender with suppliers. Frigerio claimed that the system will be seamless. Data generated through the online booking tool, for instance, will flow through to the MI piece.

CWT showed Cairo to 35 of its best customers in the eponymous Egyptian capital last month. One travel manager who attended said first impressions were favorable. "Given that I didn't think Carlson Wagonlit was switched on as far as the Internet is concerned, this is overall very good," he said. "From what I have seen, there is no rocket science there but it does put it all in one place. From a corporate point of view, that means travelers won't go off surfing for the information for half an hour."

A pricing structure for Cairo has not yet been finalized, but Frigerio said charging probably will be per user, although some elements will be free.