WTP Expands OFS To Corporates

<B> WTP Expands OFS To Corporates</B>

By Sarah Welt

<I>Atlanta</I> - WorldTravel Partners-BTI Americas this summer plans to launch a new division of its Online Fulfillment Services dedicated to handling managed travel.

Customers will use the new division as their "electronic agency of record" for online bookings, and at the same time be able to make traditional travel arrangements through a different travel management company, in the same way that corporate travel departments now outsource different functions to different suppliers, said co-president Danny Hood. In preparation, the agency has reserved 20 URL addresses to which it will link corporations' booking products.

WTP-BTI also is planning to reduce the price it charges for fulfilling online transactions, to between $15 and $20 each, in response to customer "complaints that self-service reservations in the short run are costing corporations more. They end up paying $3 to $4 booking fees to the booking engine provider, even though they have yet to build enough volume to realize cost savings," Hood said.

A key component of the OFS managed travel division will be its profile management system, which is now being developed with code from BTI's previous technology provider, Electronic Data Systems.

The new system will synchronize human resources databases with traveler profiles in the computer reservation systems, and also allow travelers to create and maintain their own profiles. Hood said the company wants to complete that development before it launches OFS Managed Travel.

To further simplify the booking process, the agency is working with Nuance Communications to add a voice recognition interface to its online ResAssist system by year-end. Hood said the voice component will work well with ResAssist 4.0, its new version, where stored trip models significantly lessen the amount of detail necessary to make a reservation.