GetThere last month announced it would provide a link to OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation Web site, and add an activities section to its home page. Cendant Corp.'s Travelport has similar enhancements that are set to be unveiled at the National Business Travel Association convention in Chicago in July.
Bev Heinritz, general manager of GetThere, citing a January 2006 JupiterResearch/ERI Executive survey that reported 51 percent of 299 frequent travelers, said they would like to make dinner reservations online, said having a link to OpenTable is an important capability. "It's not completely part of the corporate trip, but it's the reality that people do things outside of scheduled events when on corporate trips," Heinritz said.
Even so, some industry experts are skeptical of just how much such features will be used. "I don't automatically accept the logic that if the tools are there, people will use them," said Tom Wilkinson, president of TRW Travel Consulting in Pennington, N.J. "Travelers in most cases simply are going to ask the person there where to go. It sounds great in a sales presentation, but I just don't know how often it's going to be used and I seriously doubt we'll see any utilization statistics released by the vendors."
GetThere will begin rolling out the enhancements in mid-June and expects meeting managers to get the most out of OpenTable's 4,500 restaurants and variety of leisure options in its activity section, such as golf, shows, tours and attractions.
Dean Sivley, COO of Cendant's Travelport, said the company is in talks with a restaurant association to integrate such content as company-specific restaurant promotions and dining club rewards into the booking tool. "One of the things with corporate tools that everybody stayed away from is advertising, so some people may find the offering of restaurants and whatnot as an infringement whereas others find value, so it's got to be an opt-in, but we're definitely headed down that line," Sivley told Business Travel News in March
(BTN, March 20). Mega agency Carlson Wagonlit Travel in several countries already has an icon to its sister leisure site on its corporate travel desktop. Meanwhile, a spokesman said Expedia Corporate Travel has no plans to implement such features because it's not something for which ECT clients are asking.
Harriet Washburn, integrated supply chain manager of global travel services at IBM, doesn't see leisure-oriented enhancements impacting use of online booking tools. "I'm not sure having that capability on your booking tool is going to increase the appetite to use that tool. It's just not that material," she said. "It really would be more appetizing for smaller customers who are operating in a non-mandate environment and are trying to gain utilization of these tools. Certainly, the customers we deal with tend to be larger, with well-managed programs. Unless the customer specifically indicated an appetite for something like that, most likely, we probably wouldn't even include it as an option."
However, Norm Rose, president of Belmont, Calif.-based Travel Tech Consulting, cited the appeal of such leisure-oriented enhancements to corporate booking tools. "The idea of a link to OpenTable is a great addition to GetThere, because generally you have to eat when you travel," he said. "You get tired of just sitting in your hotel room and I would have really liked it if a travel supplier would make some suggestions based on what was important to me."
Rose said more suppliers should make better use of the readily available preferences stored in traveler profiles: "There is a much bigger issue of personalization and lack of personalization in business travel applications that to no end frustrates me."
GetThere's Heinritz said the company realizes the features are not a fit for every customer. "Certainly, we have clients that want to stay focused on the corporate program," she said. "We're trying to support a company's commitment to employee retention and traveler satisfaction."
Yet, the viability of such enhancements remains to be seen until the features launch this summer. "It will be interesting to see compliance rates around dining reservations," Heinritz said, "and whether or not we integrate that further by placing policy restrictions on OpenTable in terms of per diem on food and beverage."