Nationwide Insurance To Test USAir Book Product

<H1> Nationwide Insurance To Test USAir Book Product</H1>By Jay Campbell

Columbus, Ohio - Nationwide Insurance will be one of two companies to pilot a corporate version of USAir's PC booking software as part of the company's long-term vision of electronic travel management.

Called Corporate TravelWorks, USAir's product will be tested early next quarter with 30 to 50 travelers at Nationwide, as well as another undisclosed company, before release next year. Nationwide joins Hewlett-Packard, which is testing United's Corporate Connection (BTN, March 4), as a pilot site for corporate airline booking software.

"We're trying to drive all reservations work through an electronic process controlled by the travelers or designated travel arrangers," said Nationwide director of corporate money management Michael Maier. "We've had this vision of a totally integrated start-to-finish electronic product for three or four years now, and the technology is finally catching up."

Maier said Nationwide envisions a system in which electronically transmitted expense reports are created as soon as the traveler begins making a reservation. Already the company is processing 12,000 electronic expense reports per month through software written by Nationwide, and it is also interested in issuing electronic receipts.

Maier said that in many cases, secretaries would be using the software to book travel for their bosses. "For some management teams, though, being self-sufficient is sometimes better, so they'll fend for themselves," he said. "It's not a one-size-fits-all solution. That's why we're keeping our options open."

Nationwide also is developing an e-mail reservations system for a short-run test, but Maier said he believes that "ultimately, we'll end up with CTW as the primary reservations vehicle."

CTW is the corporate version of Priority Travel Works, released by USAir last year after joint development with Galileo (BTN, Oct 23, 1995), the CRS that USAir and United partly own.

USAir senior director of distribution planning Shafiq Kahn said that CTW "will encourage policy compliance by offering negotiated fares from only those suppliers the company wants shown, according to corporate policy. In addition, CTW will provide valuable information on travel and spending patterns, a feature that will be fairly basic in the beginning but will be continually refined."

Maier said a joint cost study with USAir has indicated that the door is open for "negotiations based on labor and commissions reductions and a changing travel agency role, as well as things like ticketless travel.