Enhancements to travel technology products will not be in short supply this week at the National Business Travel Association convention in Orlando, as providers attempt to focus the attention of buyer attendees on corporate online booking and other software tools.
Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Outtask, Sabre, Travelport and Worldspan are among the technology suppliers set to debut online booking enhancements at the conference.
Worldspan is marketing enhancements to its Trip Manager system, following a detailed review of the product and addition of more programmers and other resources to create, among other things, a new user interface.
Known as Trip Manager XE, the latest release of the product is the first of several, said senior vice president and general manager of worldwide travel distribution Mike Parks. "There was a detailed review of the product, although we never expected our commitment to Trip Manager would be any less," Parks said. "We concluded this is a very critical part of the product portfolio."
Recent enhancements include additional hotel imagery, a clearer display of hotel availability, more prominent display of traveler and company preferences and additional sorting options for fares and rail bookings.
One of the key Trip Manager features Worldspan highlighted is its Rapid Reprice online exchange capability, available on nine domestic carriers.
Today, Sabre GetThere is expected to announce online capabilities with all airlines that allow travelers to calculate the cost of and search for a new flight to replace an existing reservation, to execute a refund or void and to purchase a new ticket. GetThere said the capability is not available for trips in progress, but claimed that nearly 70 percent of exchanges happen on trips not yet flown and that travelers prefer to use the phone when they are traveling already.
The functionality, which will be available to GetThere DirectCorporate users in September, includes negotiated fares if they were loaded into ATPCo
(BTN, March 15, 2004).Cendant Corp.'s Travelport will be showing new features, including enhanced seat selection, the integration of Web fares into a single display with other rates and policy functions that apply rules to such parameters as specific air segments, car rental types or hotel markets. Meanwhile, a "deep cultural localization offers the first truly global Travelport," the company claimed. The product is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Outtask has announced a partnership with JetBlue Airways to provide integrated access to the airline's CompanyBlue corporate booking portal.
Like Worldspan, Carlson Wagonlit Travel has overhauled the user interface and reduced by 40 percent the number of pages and clicks required to make a reservation in its corporate booking tool, known as Horizon. Part of the travel management company's Symphonie suite, Horizon also now accesses CWT's global hotel database of about 110,000 properties and offers dynamic updating of corporate hotel rates as well as new controls on the preferencing of hotel rate displays, said CWT CIO Loren Brown.
Other expected technology debuts at the show include a new policy management tool from Navigant International and WorldTravel BTI's CenTris Console e-fulfillment status reporting product.