TMCs To Offer Web Fares: Rosenbluth, TQ3 Maritz Lead Megas In Marketing A Solution

Rosenbluth International and TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions today announced the most comprehensive mega agency Internet-only fare offerings so far, amid a rush by dozens of agencies to market solutions that clients are eager to test.

Megas Navigant International, WorldTravel BTI, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and American Express said they would announce details of their standard Web fare solutions sometime in the next three months. Austin Travel, Omega World Travel, Tzell Travel Specialists and World Wide Travel Service are among the super regional and smaller travel management companies that already have made Web fares available to their clients.

Philadelphia-based Rosenbluth's new Web fare offering, tentatively called Web Central, will be available to a handful of select corporations next week and to every Rosenbluth client by the end of May, said CIO John Dabek. "What this service does is integrate from beginning to end the needs of corporations for Web fares, from auditing to booking to reporting," he said. Atlanta-based TRX Inc., which also provides Rosenbluth's mid-office technology, provides the platform for Web Central.

Web Central will be rolled out in three phases. "The first phase, which begins at the start of May, will offer travelers who call our agents Web fares from 10 online search engines, including Travelocity, Orbitz and Expedia, plus some of the major airline sites," Dabek said. At first, Web Central will not allow clients to stipulate which sites are searched, nor will it search Southwest's Web site. At the end of May, the second phase of the rollout will begin, Dabek said, "which will allow us to automatically capture Web fare itinerary data and bring it into the GDS and our clients' back-office reporting systems." Prior to this, Web itinerary data will have to be entered manually by agents. The third phase of the rollout will take place around July 1. "We'll be expanding our automatic low-fare search capability to include Web fares," he said. "This will make Web fares available to travelers using Rosenbluth's online booking tools and provide our agents with more search options."

Rosenbluth client Susann Bell, manager of business travel services at Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont Corp., said, "the timing couldn't be better" for the rollout of Rosenbluth's Web fare solution. "The level of noise in our corporation about Internet fares versus negotiated fares has been extremely loud," she said. "It appeals to me that in a very short period of time we will be able to deliver Internet fares to travelers, but the most important thing is that we are going to be able to track travelers who choose to book these fares."

St. Louis-based travel management company TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions at an April 9 client event said it is piloting the services of four third-party Web fare solutions as part of its Optimizer travel management platform for six clients. Although the pilot program is being conducted on a limited basis, CIO Richard Spradling said Maritz "can deliver Web fares to all its clients, as long as they are flexible in terms of the time frame for implementation." Maritz's Web fare services initially are being offered in two tiers: one level of service allows for auditing only of Web fares, and the other allows booking. Pricing for the service has yet to be determined.

Maritz began testing the services of 12 third-party Web fare providers four months ago and now has narrowed the field to Alexandria, Va.-based Outtask; Santa Clara, Calif.-based SideStep; San Mateo, Calif.-based Excambria; and Southlake, Texas-based Sabre. "Outtask is notable because it integrates Web fares into its online booking tool," Spradling said. "And Sabre's approach of bringing the fares into the GDS is extremely efficient."

Richard Buentello, Sabre technology director, said Sabre is working with New York-based FareChase to bring Web fares into the GDS display for viewing only. "If they want to book the fares, agencies will have to leave the GDS," he said. According to a FareChase spokesperson, the FareChase Web fare service is being tested with 150 agencies. Buentello added that a Web fare service would be available for all clients in 30 to 60 days.

Cyndi Perper, global purchasing manager for London-based Invensys, and past president of the National Business Travel Association, is one Maritz client participating in the pilot program, using Outtask and Sidestep to grab Web fares upon request.

Perper summed up her company's experience with the products in March, its first month of implementation: "Perception is bigger than reality. Out of 4,000 domestic air tickets booked in the month of March, there were just 122 Web fare searches requested by travelers. These searches uncovered 14 fares that couldn't be booked through the GDS, for total savings of around $2,500." Perper said her company is going to undertake a second test of these tools before it commits to a Web fare solution.

Christine Adams, senior manager of travel and meeting services at Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific Corp., is a Maritz client who has been using Web fares since last July. "Since then, our travelers have requested 57 Internet fare searches through our call centers," she said, "which led to 26 Web fare bookings." The Web fares saved around $1,600, Adams said, barely a drop in the bucket of the company's $55 million total travel budget.

If these experiences with Web fares have been less than dramatic, other buyers still are pushing for access. Consultant Robert Langsfeld, partner at Incline Village, Nev.-based Corporate Solutions Group, in the past four months talked to "dozens" of buyers interested in third-party Web fare services. Third-party companies charge around $10 per transaction for Web fare bookings, he said, "and a few extra dollars per booking to get the itineraries into corporate back-office systems."

The other megas soon will offer Web fares as part of their standard services. More than 20 corporations are using a variety of Web fare search engines with American Express to research and book Web fares for travelers, said John Berkley, vice president of corporate travel marketing. He said Amex would announce its official Web fare solution next quarter. "We are beta testing some of the same products we assume our competitors are using to bring Web fares to online bookings, call centers, and onsites," he said.

Atlanta-based WorldTravel BTI has offered its NetSearch Web fare solution since the fourth quarter of last year, said executive vice president Louise Miller. With NetSearch, WorldTravel's call center agents check Web fares using sites proscribed by clients. So far, less than 10 percent of WorldTravel's customers have tried it, and "most found there was not a lot of savings relative to cost," Miller said. To cut down on search times and search more fares, WorldTravel is evaluating Sidestep and other third-party suppliers. "We hope to announce a standard third-party service in the second quarter," she said.

Denver-based Navigant International has been researching Web fares and "could announce an official Web fare solution any day now," said president Thom Nulty. For now, the mega is using a systems integrator approach for Web fares, in which clients tell the agency which sites to search. "A small percentage of our clients have asked us to look at particular software for their accounts, including SideStep, AgentWare and Outtask," Nulty said. "We're trying to match up customer demand with the best solution."

Minneapolis-based Carlson Wagonlit Travel has not announced a standard Web fare solution for its U.S. customers, although CWT Canada implemented SideStep for a few Canadian clients, said product manager Brian Hace. CWT does not expect to use SideStep in the United States, "because the returns generated on Web fares in the U.S. tend to not match up to the costs of SideStep," Hace said. "Due to Air Canada's dominance of the Canadian market, there are more non-GDS fares available there. In the U.S., there are fewer opportunities for Web savings." For U.S. corporations, CWT has some Web fare options that it is "not ready to announce yet," Hace said. "Probably in about four weeks we will have a better idea of our official offerings. We are finalizing that right now."

A growing number of regional agencies also have contracted with third-party companies to deliver Web fares, such as New York-based Stevens Travel Management, which recently contracted with Atlanta-based AgentWare and New York-based VTS Travel Enterprise, which just contracted with FareChase.

A smaller number of regionals have built their own Web fare solutions themselves, such as Little Rock, Ark.-based World Wide Travel, which offers Web fares as part of its QualityAgent online travel management suite.