Offline Bookings To Fall Below Half By '06
The percentage of managed business travel gross bookings handled offline by travel agencies will fall nearly 15 points, to 48 percent, in 2006, according to an October preview of new research from strategy and research firm PhoCusWright Inc. Online direct bookings will rise to 8.9 percent in 2006, from 2.8 percent in 2003, and online bookings processed both by "online" and "traditional" agencies will grow to 29.6 percent, from 20.4 percent this year, the firm said. Overall, "managed travel will grow at a steady pace through 2004 as companies begin to relax travel budgets and benefit from online efficiencies. In addition, an improved economy should lead to increased international travel. Market revenue will spike in 2005 as firms begin to integrate some ad-hoc meeting spend into corporate travel budgets," according to PhoCusWright, based in Sherman, Conn. At more than $80 billion in 2003 gross bookings, PCW estimated that managed travel represents 41 percent of the $199.2 billion 2003 U.S. travel market, versus 45 percent for leisure and 14 percent in the unmanaged business travel category. "While online corporate travel represents the minority share of all managed business travel, its rate of growth over the next few years will far outpace that for the industry as a whole," the research firm said. "Online corporate travel penetration of total corporate travel will grow from 23.2 percent in 2003 to 38.5 percent in 2006." By year-end 2003, according to PhoCusWright, corporate online adoption will reach 35 percent, rising to 48 percent in 2006.
Online Booking Providers Add Functions
Expedia Corporate Travel today is expected to announce a bucket of new functionality in the areas of policy control, service and reporting, according to product manager Angie Weber. "We're offering greater control and flexibility in managing traveler behavior by allowing travel managers to set up notification to certain individuals when a traveler books out of policy," she told BTN last month. "Before, we had that notification only on a group level." Weber said notifications automatically can include such custom data as reason and department codes. ECT also will launch the ability to book using a "guest" profile for interviewees and other non-employee travel. Meanwhile, the company will offer buyers a real-time, adjustable overview of which travelers qualify for such VIP or custom level service as upgrades and other special requests. ECT also will add credit card transaction data to its standard reports.
For its online booking technology, Travelport Corporate Solutions Inc. boosted policy management "to apply policies in multiple ways, including by specific search criteria or trip purpose," enabled premium economy class bookings, automated changes and cancellations and improved hotel searches, the company announced. Sabre Holdings' GetThere last month said it enabled the booking completely within its system of European "no-frills" carriers Easyjet and Ryanair.
Trondent Gets In With ABC, Radius
Barrington, Ill.-based travel technology provider Trondent Development Corp. last month said it partnered with ABC Corporate Services to provide ABC subscribers preferred access to Trondent's electronic document delivery, e-ticket tracking, GDS profile management and corporate travel reporting tools. "Based on ABC's subscriber profiles, there are clearly many synergies between Trondent's evolving range of travel reporting tools and the requirements outlined by ABC's growing number of agencies and corporate clients," said Trondent North America director of sales Theo Szymanski. Trondent in October signed a partnership with the Radius agency network to provide its shareholder agencies similar preferred access to its software and services.