Single Image Ability Spreads

<B> Single Image Ability Spreads</B>

By Maria P. Vallejo

Major hotel chains are rushing to offer customers a single source of inventory, rate and availability information, whether they access the data through through global distribution, central reservation and onsite hotel property systems and the Internet.

Choice Hotels, Hyatt Hotels and Marriott International have led the way in implementing single image inventory systems chainwide. Omni Hotels, Radisson Hotels Worldwide, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Wyndham International now are rolling out the technology.

"More than ever, very savvy travelers want to book with companies that are credible with rate integrity and consistency," said Milton Godwin, Omni's corporate director of revenue management. "They want to be sure they are getting the same rates regardless of the point of distribution. Companies that lack that integrity and consistency will lose out in the long run."

Growing accustomed to getting complete and accurate information quickly over the Internet, travel buyers are less accepting of outdated or incomplete information--especially when that results in their travelers being closed out of a hotel date or being offered non-preferred rate information.

"It hurts our business when people at the point of sale do not have confidence in our agents and rates," said Frederick Miller, Marriott International's vice president of intermediary sales and marketing. "It gets down to integrity for the end user. If the end user calls the travel agent, they expect the agent to have as much information as they would when calling the hotel directly."

<B>Upgrading The Data</B>

Until recently, hotel companies allotted travel agents a number of rooms to sell without providing them any direct interface with the actual room supply, causing travel managers to sometimes have to work with incorrect or outdated information.

"This was something that plagued the industry for a while," acknowledged Norm Canfield, Hyatt Hotels vice president of rooms division. "It was a problem for staff and customer. This technology has brought booking to a real usable level."

Domestically, Marriott has used single image inventory, which Marriott calls seamless connectivity, since 1984. Travel agents--whether using global distribution systems, central reservation offices or Marriott's Website--draw booking information from the same data pool. Preferred corporate, agency and special package rates appear in the global distribution systems and central reservation offices.

Although Marriott's Website is included in this seamless connectivity, it does not have the ability to book negotiated corporate rates. Preferred customers must book reservations through a travel agent or area reservation office. Future plans include expanding the program overseas and creating a cyberlink from the Website directly to Marsha, Marriott's reservation system, to allow the booking of corporate preferred rates, Miller said.

Hyatt Hotels rolled out its $25 million single image inventory program in the first quarter of this year, after researching and developing the project for more than three years. The system is being used to prevent revenue losses from potential customers. In 1995, Hyatt lost about $50 million in potential revenue from customers turned away because the different distribution channels missed actual inventory that remained vacant, said Hyatt vice president of individual travel sales Joan Lowell.

With single image inventory systems, "There aren't any surprises. There's no difference booking locally or globally," said Scott Ulring, Radisson Hotels Worldwide's director of partner marketing. Radisson has used seamless connectivity between its central reservation offices and GDSs since 1993. Its Website was linked automatically through single image inventory when it was launched in 1996.

While there are hotels that have completed the implementation of such single image inventory systems, some are in beta test and development phases. Omni Hotels, for example, has been testing a system built in-house at its Park West Hotel in Dallas. In October, it will begin a rollout to all Omni owned, managed and franchised hotels, with completion slated for the first quarter of 1999. Creating seamless connectivity was part of a $5 million technology project that updated and installed a new property management, revenue management and global reservation system chainwide, Godwin said.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is partially equipped with single image inventory in about 70 percent of its properties, and expects to reach 85 percent by year-end. Wyndham International expects to begin rolling out its version of single image inventory by the beginning of next year, said executive vice president of marketing and strategic planning Mack Koonce. Hilton hopes to finish its rollout of single image inventory by the end of next year.

Some smaller hotel companies will go without the systems. Four Seasons, for example, has no plans to develop seamless connectivity. "The benefit here is to provide the customer with the last available room, and I think we do an adequate job," said vice president of sales David Crowl. "We're dealing with a very thin market.