Products On Floor: Up & Coming

<H1> Products On Floor: Up & Coming</H1>By Cheryl Rosen

New York - It's a year of hype and expectation for the travel management technology industry, as vendors rush to meet an exploding demand for automated travel solutions with a slew of products in three modules: the here, the almost here and the one-day-it-will-be here.

Judging by the reaction of travel managers at BTN's Corporate Travel World show, sorting out the reality from the pipe dreams will be a monumental task for many-especially those whose roles never before rested quite so heavily on technological expertise. CRSs, airlines, agencies and independent developers are rolling out products for the corporate travel market-with some offering "fully integrated" solutions, and others preferring to stick with their expertise in travel booking and leave the expense reporting to others. Some experts advise a system that is independent of major vendor relationships; others see advantages in long-term partnerships with suppliers that will be around to support accounts for the long haul.

Suppliers, too, face a dilemma. This is not a good year for being reticent to speak until products are fully operational, even though many suppliers say they would prefer to do. Customers want to know who the competing players will be, even if there is not yet anything to see but a slide show.

In any event, all agree that the age of automated booking and expense reporting is closing fast, and next year's Corporate Travel show will offer a full array of automated products that travel managers will be able to touch and feel and buy. Those who want to heed the advice of IBM's Greg Conley (see story, Page 1) and help forge the direction of systems under construction should already be talking to vendors about possible involvement in beta tests.

Among the first products from the CRSs will doubtless be Business Travel Solutions from American Airlines' Sabre Group. While still calling its demo version a "prototype," Sabre nonetheless promised to deliver three modules for the corporate market-booking, travel management and expense reporting-before the end of the year. Included in the Sabre system are two features to speed up the process for travelers: a frequent-trip log that will allow travelers making repeat trips to the same destination to bring up the former itinerary and just rekey the dates; and a Trip Search feature that will allow travelers to access airlines, hotels and rental cars pre-selected by their travel manager. (Sabre also seems to be addressing the issue of independence from American; see BTN.Com column.)

While Sabre has taken the highest profile, it is not alone among the CRSs in the development of booking-through-expense-reporting systems for the corporate market. And each is taking a unique approach.

Rather than building three modules, Worldspan is preparing a system built by buying the best pieces of already-proven technology. "We have multiple owners, and our strategy has always been to partner with other automation partners," said sales and marketing vice president Sue Powers. "We are looking at products that are already on the market that we can private-label and package together."

Worldspan, which hopes to have its product out by year-end, has sent RFPs to 22 companies, Powers said, including traditional data processing companies like Arthur Andersen, and agencies like World Travel Partners and TravelNet, in search of "a T&E system that will monitor travel policy and compliance, feed into expense report and ultimately hand off to accounting." In the role of system integrator, Worldspan will offer training of internal corporate users, support and a help desk.

The Worldspan system will be offered in three ways, Powers said: as a stand-alone software product that a corporation buys and runs itself, as a service run for the company by a travel agency or as a service run by Worldspan itself. "We are evaluating that last option in light of the fact that corporations are looking at what their core business is, and we see an opportunity for an automation company like ours to make that affordable," said Powers.

USAir, on the other hand, is planning to offer a booking system with no expense reporting module. Company spokesman Dave Castelveter said the carrier is working with Galileo to develop a corporate version of its Priority Travel Works, which is now available to individual Priority Gold travelers (see story, Page 2). The system, called Corporate Travel Works, is in its earliest stages, with feedback being solicited from a test group of travel managers and agents following USAir's vision of "troika" relationships.

United Airlines, meanwhile, is pursuing yet another strategy: a long beta test of all three modules of its United Corporate Connection before making much information public, according to director of electronic distribution Mark Koehler. United's product will begin beta testing at two corporate sites-Hewlett-Packard Corp. and another that remains anonymous-in May or June, and will add one more corporate test site per month beginning in September or October and through the first quarter of 1997. The product should be available to the open market-United preferred customers or not-by the second quarter of 1997. "We're not going to promote it until all the modules are ready," Koehler said.

On the expense reporting side, United will offer three different solutions: an interface into Galileo's TravelMaster, its existing "high-end" expense-reporting product; a new product being built specifically for United Corporate Connection; and a download of raw data that will feed into a corporate customer's existing T&E system.

Among the travel agencies, BTI Americas talked about-but did not yet roll out-a business-process approach to automation that expands the concept of "integrated" to a new level. Building on its relationship with EDS, BTI envisions a seamless system of databases, to be called Portico (from the Greek word meaning doorway), that will include five modules: travel planning, destination information, expense reporting, decision support and travel budgeting.

"We envision not a product for this and a product for that, but a gallery of products for travel management," said BTI spokesman Bob Dirkes. "Our intention is to create a database that's separate from the CRS, to provide a gateway of information from which travelers, travel arrangers and travel managers can draw whatever they need."

The database that allows travelers to research and book trips is now in beta test at two corporate sites. BTI expects to have all the pieces operational by year-end.

From the independents, TravelNet-at four years old the grandfather of the automated booking systems-released its new Voyager 2.0 version to lively traffic at its trade show booth. While new CEO Randy Malin can still count his customer base on his fingers, a recent infusion of investment cash and the ability to book in real time have added credibility to the TravelNet system. Voyager 2.0 offers immediate confirmations, "a sophisticated fare advice feature" that offers a full price list including bargain fares and corporate preferred vendors, enhanced data capture capabilities and a "new layer of open architecture" that more easily hooks into internal systems, according to chairman John Shoolery. "A lot of work has been done to make the system fit the new marketplace of open architectures and the flexibility that corporations need," he said. Malin said that an expense reporting product also is under development.

On the T&E side, too, the activity is brisk. At Necho Systems, the technology arm of the Rider Travel Group of Canada, T&E software is now available in four versions-one each for the government and commercial markets in the United States and Canada. Necho also is working with the credit card companies to offer broken-down folio data, and is "seeing dates from midyear to early 1997 from the various vendors," according to vice president Bill Hunter. The system has 14 corporate customers, paying $20 to $100 per user.

Also eliciting some attention at Corporate Travel World was the new Captura expense reporting system, a Windows-based, client-server "corporate financial system" from Workflow Solutions of Bellevue, Wash. Data can be sent over company e-mail, and an application to run on corporate intranet pages is being added. Said president Bernard Gouveia, "it's the vendor independence that makes us different, and the underlying workflow automation." The system runs from $25,000 to $300,000.

Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based super-regional Travel One demonstrated its new Expense One product, which will be available on the open market as well as to Travel One customers. The product, in beta test now, will feature daily credit card downloads. Also in the works is an automated booking system that is going into beta test at five client sites and scheduled for full marketing by year's end. In the meantime, TravelOne offers Expressmail, an e-mail-based booking system.

For the middle-module travel management reporting arena, the Prism Group's Travel Managers Workstation is planning a "major new release" this summer and preparing "to plug into" the new point-of-sale and expense management systems that export and import data. Workstation, one of the first dedicated travel management automation products-used by 20 of the Fortune 100 corporations and seven of the 10 largest agencies, for a combined annual air volume of $6 billion-will move from the OS2 platform to NT, making it "much faster and giving it much more strength in managing supplier relations and hotel preferences," according to Prism president Michael Whitesage. With an eye toward the globalization, the system's interface can now be translated into almost any language.

And for travel managers looking to automate travel booking over the Internet (BTN, Feb.12), intermediary service Internet Travel Network reports a cash infusion from a private investor that has allowed it to expand its focus from the travel agencies that formed its original market to its expanding base of corporate customers, now up to 20. The service, which can book reservations only in Apollo, will offer interfaces to all the major CRSs within 60 days, and is beta testing a layer of travel policy filters, negotiated fares and preferred vendors for corporate customers.