Stevens Travel To Test Link Between PNRs, Hotel Lists

To cut down on the paper trail created during the planning of corporate events, Stevens Travel Management is beta testing an application that links airline PNRs created by agents to hotel registration records managed by meeting planners. The agency's group division will use the software at its New York headquarters for the events it plans for client Bristol-Myers.

The software, called the the Meeting and Incentive Planner, was developed by Insight Data Corp., a division of New York-based Stevens Travel.

In addition, agency Macpherson Travel Service, which finished equipment installation earlier this month, will use the program for several clients.

The software is intended to cut down on the paper trail created by planning a corporate event and automate the modifications to program registration when flights are changed.

Designed for use by regional agencies once it is rolled out some time in May, the program-a Worldspan application-uses a Microsoft Access shared model database for use by agent and planner, giving both confirmation of the continual air reservation changes that affect an event's overall scheduling.

"Both the agent booking the air reservation, and the planner managing the hotel block and program itinerary, will have access to that data collected on that event," said David Gilman, Insight Data's senior programmer. "Once the agent books the flight and inputs the event-related information about the attendee, the PNR and registration data reflect the same information without any manual inputting from the planner's end."

A travel manager or meeting planner who has outsourced the logistics to the agency can dial in to remotely access an up-to-date attendee list on a developing event.

If the PNR is amended, or if there is a cancellation, that information is automatically reflected in the database, which drives the creation of the final rooming list. The list is then faxed, or mailed on a diskette to the hotel. The process eventually will be upgraded so that electronic data with rooming lists will be e-mailed automatically to the hotels, Gilman said.

The program also tracks hotel blocks to avoid overbooking, and generates arrival and departure lists, confirmation and cancellation letters, activity reports, badges, overnight shipping labels on line and block space and room night reports.

Agents working on group bookings also can take advantage of Insight's previously developed point-of-sale tools such as Passport/Visa and Travel Advisories, and can link the PNR to T/RES, a proprietary quality control system that handles fare monitoring and wait-list clearance, and enables fax confirmations to the traveler.

Zaida Jackson, a Princeton, N.J.-based manager of corporate meeting management services for Bristol-Myers' pharmaceutical group, said she hopes the package will expedite an involved and error-provoking process. Last-minute planning, along with frequent updates and cancellations of group events, are fairly common with the hectic schedules of Bristol-Myers' executives, she said. Although she wouldn't estimate her annual meeting load, she said it was "substantial," with 4,000 employees in the division.

"I think most planners in the industry want the ability to link air res data and registration data in a reliable way," she said. "It's just a question of someone actually doing what obviously needs to be done. We don't know of too many other agencies that offer clients instant access to linked air and land data."

Registration packages such as Phoenix Solutions' Meeting Track are reported to be developing such a link, although one MIS employee of a corporation testing the system said there were problems with the software that it evaluated.

Another agency, EGR in New York, has similar capabilities, Jackson said, although she is still seeking an army of vendors equipped with "good registration packages" among which to split her substantial outsource volume.

Macpherson Travel president Dan Greene said he had relied on Stevens' travel technology for other applications, with positive results. "We're looking forward to using the product; it's definitely a capability that the industry could use," he said. "Stevens is small, but they build what they say they're going to build. Maybe because they're not dealing with layers of bureaucracy, they get it done faster.