Expedia Corporate Travel today said that by June it would offer services for heavily managed business travel programs, thanks to the availability of negotiated hotel rates, as well as car and air rates, expanded capabilities for policy and compliance, more robust and real-time reporting and bulk loading of traveler profiles from any global distribution system.
"We're now opening for business for big customers," said Matt Hulett, Expedia Corporate Travel vice president, during a demonstration for
Business Travel News last month. He added that Expedia is working with hotel partners to offer a corporate version of its wildly successful merchant model Expedia Special Rate hotel rooms. "It will give suppliers the ability to yield up their rate and add amenities like broadband connections, breakfast or points." He said that while the initial Expedia Corporate Travel product did not allow for the loading of clients' negotiated hotel rates
(BTN, Dec. 9, 2002), that was a feature "everyone was clamoring for."
New policy levers in the offering can, at the buyer's discretion, require users to specify a reason for noncompliance and notify supervisors of such decisions. Among several other features, the system also flags preferred vendors and the best "in-policy" options, as well as selections that are out of policy with an explanation. Partly to help build project code- and department-based reporting, Expedia partnered with Barrington, Ill.-based Trondent Development Corp. for GDS profile extraction and synchronization.
"It was just a matter of time," before Expedia began offering more intricate travel management tools, said one mega agency competitor, "but we still think they'll have trouble with large, complex global accounts."