MasterCard Signs Hotels To E-Folio Pact
MasterCard International last week announced it has partnered with Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Choice Hotels International, Hilton Hotels Corp. and an unnamed hotel company to transmit electronic folio data to MasterCard corporate clients.
MasterCard said more than 6,000 properties currently are passing the data to clients through the card network. The unnamed hotel partner is in the pilot phase and will be announced in the next "three to six months," after more of its properties come onboard, said MasterCard senior vice president of corporate payment solutions Steve Abrams.
While former electronic processes could break out only the sum of the parts, the e-folio transmission enables such level-three details as telephone charges, taxes and business center fees, as well as ancillary expenses to be itemized and sent electronically to client expense reporting systems.
Abrams said once hotels transmit the data, they first go into MasterCard's global data repository, after which it can be viewed automatically on MasterCard's online reporting systems Smart Data Online or Smart Express.
Abrams said that if customers do not use its proprietary reporting platforms, MasterCard has relationships with the dominant expense reporting companies to also transmit the data, including Concur, Geac, Gelco, Necho Systems, Oracle, Outtask, Peoplesoft and SAP.
MasterCard initially is offering the folio transmission through four of its bank issuers—Bank One, Citibank, GE Corporate Payment Services and JPMorgan Chase—but said more issuers are to come.
"Through these alliances, an enhanced level of travel-related information can now be passed electronically through to the corporation, allowing for increased control, analysis and reporting of business travel expenditures," Abrams said.
In announcing its folio initiatives, MasterCard joins Visa, which already partners with Choice, Hilton and Prime Hospitality. MasterCard and Visa both have said they are active in expanding their partnerships to include more hotels.
"The technology is not really the difficulty," Abrams said of transmitting folio data. "It takes awhile to get the hotels under contract. As more hotels sign on, it does become a competitive issue. We're getting the feeling that more and more hotels want to participate."