ResX, Serko To Deliver Joint Regional Booking Tools

Online booking tool providers TRX and New Zealand-based Serko this month announced a partnership to provide corporations with a joint online booking program for North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific through their respective ResX and Serko Online offerings.

The alliance plans to announce later this month its first two or three shared accounts, which are current mutual users of the self-booking tools, said ResX Technologies president Shane Hammond. ResX will handle bookings in the Americas and Serko will manage the Asia/Pacific point of sale. Accounts will be joined through a common contract with the same pricing, service-level agreements and rules engine to enable common travel policy delivery in both online booking tools and such workflow processes as data consolidation.

Equity was not exchanged between the two companies. Contract ownership is managed geographically and the company that processes the booking collects the entire transaction fee.

Hammond said he expects other online booking tool providers to join the alliance later this year. The criteria for joining the alliance are local market dominance and exclusive dedication to online booking.

Serko is the dominant player in Australia, said Hammond. "The reason why we knew it would work with Serko is that we've been in Australia for five years with mixed success, but when things change—a dominant carrier jumps out of the GDS or some workflow change comes up because the way they tax travel—it's not always tops on our list to solve that dilemma. With Serko, it is, and ditto with us in the United States," he said.

As corporations broaden operations, travel management companies have shifted some online booking tool distribution strategies to a regional approach. Hammond said the alliance can increase compliance by enabling more travelers to be rolled into a common online booking program. "A company can have 90 percent of its employee base and travel spend in one of the regions and the other 10 percent historically was just left alone to do whatever they wanted," he said. "Now, there is a willing partner to take on that small piece as part of the alliance and serve it the way it needs to be serviced."