WTP Unit Finds Fulfillment In Online Services

<B> WTP Unit Finds Fulfillment In Online Services</B>

By Sarah Welt

<I>Atlanta</I> - WorldTravel Partners' Online Fulfillment Services division this year will handle 1.2 million tickets booked over the Internet--and it expects to double that amount, to 2.5 million tickets, in 1999.

Launched two years ago as a way to profit from the rapidly growing, and potentially lucrative, business of electronic commerce, the OFS division has signed seven contracts to handle ticket processing and customer services for major consumer and managed-travel Websites.

A study commissioned in 1994 showed WTP that "the four top businesses in e-commerce were going to be shopping, gambling, pornography and travel," said WorldTravel Partners corporate travel and technology president Danny Hood. "Being a high integrity company, we didn't want to go into porn or gambling, and we weren't a mall, so we said 'Wow! Travel.' "

Its first contract, signed in October 1996, was to handle Microsoft's Expedia site. Today OFS also handles fulfillment for travel booked through one major domestic airline site, biztravel.com and Via World Network. Two new customers, an international carrier and a CRS, will be implemented by the first of the year, Hood said.

To handle the load, OFS employs 155 staffers, up from 75 a year ago. It has two centers, one in Atlanta for consumer travel and another in Parkersburg, W.Va., for managed and partially managed travel. Both offer 24-hour service, a first-level help desk, e-mail management, ticket and document distribution and quality control.

To handle back-end processing in both centers, Hood said agents need to have not only traditional travel agency skills, but also to be technically proficient with e-mail, Internet and fulfillment software.

Even with an electronic travel distribution center that is well automated, Hood said, OFS still gets two phone calls and three or four e-mails for every ten transactions from its frequent travelers, who tend to change their plans far more often than leisure customers do. "Last month we handled pretty close to 100,000 tickets and it seemed like we had 30,000 phone calls and 25,000 e-mails," he said.

When calls do come in, display phones let agents know how to respond in a way that keeps the process looking seamless to the traveler. "We answer using the airline name or Expedia or Via," Hood said.

In 1999, Hood projected, OFS will exceed 2.5 million air tickets.