Of the 83 Corporate Travel 100 accounts that have selected a self-booking tool, 57 are using technology provided by Sabre and its GetThere subsidiary. Clearly, Sabre's acquisition of GetThere produced a competitor that has a substantial early advantage in the nascent business of corporate self-booking.
According to a survey of the top 100 buyers of corporate travel conducted annually by Business Travel News (BTN, Aug. 27), all the other vendors of self-service reservation tools combined to account for 22 customers, with four more using an internally developed tool or a proprietary agency system. Of the 100 companies, 10 said they do not have a system, while seven did not answer.
These figures by no means represent actual market share. For that, one would have to take into account total transactions and adoption rates, which only some corporations reveal. But for the purposes of a market indicator, GetThere's CT100 clients represent a potential aggregated U.S.-booked air volume of $6.77 billion. The same figure for the next largest vendor, Amadeus' E-Travel, is $868 million.
For the CT100 and the much larger managed travel market beyond it, competitors are gearing up to challenge the leader, with the latest developments revolving around self-booking acquisitions by Amadeus and Galileo (BTN, Aug. 13).
"GetThere has the largest share of a market that is still very small, but growing rapidly," said Rob Wald, senior director of marketing at E-Travel. "I think it is important to keep GetThere's 'market leadership' in perspective. No one owns the market."
But neither Wald nor any independent observer discounts GetThere's early lead.
"It's still early in the game, and you don't want to name the winner of the Indy 500 after 20 laps," said Andy Menkes of Partnership Travel Consulting in Princeton, N.J. "Still, there is such a significant gap, all the vendors will need to prove themselves not in terms of the number of CT100 accounts they have, but in the true functionality and ROI of the system."
"First to market is critical, but the company has to maintain its credible image and quality products and service," said Bob Lichtman, partner in Incline Village, Nev.-based Corporate Solutions Group. "To its credit, GetThere has been keeping up with the times and enhancing the systems. Until, or unless, a competitor comes along who can show better or easier technology or lower prices, I don't expect them to lose their lead."
"The early lead is very important," said Norm Rose, president of Travel Tech Consulting of Belmont, Calif. "But I still believe GetThere has to figure out a way to balance serving the installed base and innovating. It's been unclear what is their next-generation platform."
"We're speaking softly about the new platform because we have our heads down doing the work," said GetThere COO Jeff Palmer. "We're busy coding away now that we understand where the gaps are between the two products. We're upgrading and modernizing our core architecture and infrastructure as well as the business processes around that. Our strategy is to roll out in phases, so you'll see progress over the next several quarters for the combined functionality."
Asked about the perception that Sabre BTS is being "sunset," Palmer called it inaccurate. "We have withdrawn BTS from sales, so if you want a new system in 2001, we present GetThere DirectCorporate," he said. "There has been no withdrawal of support for BTS—we haven't even met to discuss whether we will do that—but we are restricting enhancements on BTS in favor of enhancements on the combined platform."
While GetThere has continued to develop its products since the Sabre acquisition—announcing in that timeframe a midmarket product, a multilingual product, meetings integration, an adoption consulting group, several new travel agency partnerships, direct connection technology and a slew of customer success stories, not to mention processesing 150 percent more corporate transactions—GetThere executives know the merger hasn't been all roses.
The company's image suffered from a May decision to raise fees for the BTS product to the level of the GetThere product, angering many clients (BTN, June 25). Some also have complained about shoddy client service.
"The vast majority of clients were retained," Palmer said. "We lost a handful, but most had either only recently decided or historically had low adoption levels. It's been well documented that there have been issues, but I feel very proud that we have principally weathered the storm."
According to Lichtman, some of whose clients were irritated by GetThere's pricing move on BTS, "The current issues have been settled but long-term relationships have been damaged."
A key question is how well travel managers and their senior managements tolerate switching vendors. GetThere said the attrition rate is very low.
"They can still be replaced," said Paul Keung, equities analyst with CIBC World Markets. "They can lose market share. Now, what's important is that they continue to add service and value."
But according to Menkes, switching vendors would be "something of a career challenge."
"If, as a travel manager, I have justified XYZ booking system and then, two years later, I say I want to switch, someone in senior management will ask me what has changed," he said. "It's often easier to resolve issues with the incumbent than to switch."
Meanwhile, in terms of customer service, GetThere last week revealed to BTN two systems that help resolve customer issues.
A process called Remedy automates the communication of customer-reported issues, allowing GetThere to more quickly prioritize and delegate the issue to the proper internal department for a response, along the way providing clients with feedback on the status of their requests. While Remedy is focused on live sites, a different system called Portera is related to project management on the initial site setup or major new projects on existing sites. Portera allows the creation of milestones and timelines, or deliverables for the travel agency, GetThere and the client.
"If and when those timelines change, it's very visible to everybody," Palmer said. "It's all part of our larger mantra of operational excellence."
GetThere has a long way to go before it becomes the IBM of technology or the American Express of corporate travel—in other words, where the brand alone can justify a winning bid. Still, there is no doubt who is ahead in the corporate self-booking race.