<B> Inside Track</B>
<B>IBM Calls For Travel Industry Partners</B>
IBM is looking for a few good partners willing to "try something really adventurous" in the world of electronic commerce, especially for pilots involving "privacy, variable prices and negotiated deals, the evolving marketplace, business-to-business relationships and managing the end customer." The call comes from Dr. Stuart Feldman, IBM's group manager for networked computer software and the director of the Institute for Advanced Commerce. Established in January, the Institute hopes to "accelerate progress in the field of electronic commerce, create new technologies and work with customers to extend the limits of what electronic commerce can do." Said Feldman, "The world has moved radically from paying retail, and the Internet makes it possible to move into a world of far more negotiations. Changes in cost structures are causing creation of new intermediaries and the destruction of old ones. We're sampling the frontier in every area you can imagine."
<a name="story2"><B>Navigant Names Board</B>
While U.S. Office Products and its spinoff companies still are under a gag order by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Navigant International president and chief executive officer Ed Adams told BTN that the travel management company already has appointed a board of directors. The initial five members are Adams, Jonathan Ledecky, current USOP chairman of the board, Vass Sirpolaidis, president of Mile High Office Supply in Denver, Ned Minor, a Denver-based attorney, and Craig Young, an executive in the fiber optic business. After the spin-off, Adams said, "we'll probably add more industry people."
Adams said, "We've got a name and we will continue to operate as our regional companies with the kind of umbrella identity of Navigant International." The spinoffs are set to be completed in the second or third week of this month.
<a name="story3"><B>Net Fares For All</B>
Milwaukee-based Midwest Express Airlines has a broad policy when it comes to net fares, allowing interested companies to take the 8 percent commission off the ticket price and compensate agencies themselves. "It's a net fare, not a net-net," said sales and distribution vice president Lisa Bauer.
<a name="story4"><B>Hotel Bookings Move To GDS</B>
The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association reports that 1997 was a record year for the use of global distribution systems to book hotels. Net 1997 GDS hotel reservations totaled 35 million, about 20 million more than in 1993. Most bookings went through travel agents, though Internet bookings also are on the rise, said John Burns, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Hospitality Technology Consulting.
<a name="story5"><B>Catching Up to Caps</B>
America West Airlines, the nation's ninth largest, late last week revised its 8 percent travel agent commission program to include a maximum $50 payment per roundtrip and a maximum $25 payment per one-way itinerary on all tickets issued in the United States and Canada beginning May 1, 1998. The carrier, which matched United's 8 percent rate last year (<I>BTN</I>, Oct. 6, 1997), had never matched the Delta cap of 1995. The Phoenix-based airline also announced last week a new Internet commission policy which offers to all online vendors selling America West travel a 5 percent commission with a maximum $10 payment beginning May 1.
<a name="story6"><B>Hotel Titans Talk Investing</B>
Paul Nussbaum, Patriot American Hospitality's chairman and CEO; Tom Oliver, Holiday Hospitality's CEO; and Barry Sternlicht, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's chairman and CEO will address NYU's 20th annual International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference May 31 to June 2 at the Waldorf Astoria.