GetThere Eyes Demand Curbs

Online booking tool GetThere is bundling together a suite of applications that aims to help companies curb traveler demand, and in the process the booking tool provider—long reliant on transaction revenue—is modifying some pricing elements.

The Demand Management suite includes trip requests, travel validation, dynamic messaging, cost center validation, booking notification and pre-trip approval, as well as expense tool integration.

Since the suite is geared to help companies cut booking transactions, GetThere intends to charge an annual fee for every profile in the GetThere system on top of transaction fees for bookings. GetThere would not disclose the per-profile cost of the suite.

GetThere said clients can choose which components they enable, but pricing is "all in" for clients to use any or all of the technologies, vice president of corporate market strategy and solutions Suzanne Neufang said.

GetThere said about 20 percent of its clients already use at least one component of the newly bundled suite. GetThere said it plans to switch to the new pricing model on March 30, though the company in a statement said, "Customers are currently using certain pieces of the Demand Management suite on a completely different pricing model. We will grandfather our existing customers into the new, complete solution with the updated pricing model and guarantee on a case-by-case basis. This is dependent on existing products in use and the terms of their respective agreements."

"We've traditionally been a transaction-based-cost tool," Neufang said. "The intent of this is actually to lower transactions, so we're pricing it out in a way that we think the corporations will win because of their savings on the travel costs."

TRW Travel Consulting president Tom Wilkinson praised many of the technologies included in the suite—including pre-trip authorization and dynamic messaging—for their ability to guide traveler behavior, but questioned the per-profile pricing model.

"Companies are going to have major heartburn with that, because typically a good percentage of profiles are completely inactive, unless you're going to purge your profile database all the time," Wilkinson said. "Otherwise, you're asking a corporation to pay for a service when it's not used."

GetThere said it offers a guarantee that "a corporate customer will save double the program cost in the first year after implementing GetThere Demand Management or GetThere will refund the cost of Demand Management."

While GetThere recommends clients implement the entire suite "to obtain optimal value," the company said, "There are core components of the Demand Management Suite that are required to receive the guarantee."

Such a guarantee on program savings could be hard for many companies to quantify, Wilkinson said, adding, "It's really difficult to prove cost savings to a skeptical purchasing guy at any corporation. You can talk about cost avoidance, but it's a tough one."

GetThere said it is piloting the suite with "a handful" of clients, though it expects a broader rollout to help companies curb unnecessary trips and facilitate "the right travel," Neufang said.

Amid the recessive economic environment, more companies are deploying some form of pre-trip notification or approval in efforts to curb non-essential travel. Among the 241 respondents to BTN's 2009 Procurement Practices study, 71 percent said their companies have done so.

The value of such tools as those in the GetThere Demand Management suite is growing among corporate buyers, Wilkinson noted. "As much as anything," he said. "It makes a point that the technology that's inherent in their tools can be used effectively to enforce policy and discourage unnecessary travel."