Atlanta - TRX Inc. next month will introduce a new suite of tools designed for second-tier travel agencies and their midmarket clients, including a low-cost fulfillment option to automate touchless reservations.
The company, provider of agency mid-office products, data consolidation services and corporate online booking tool ResAssist, essentially founded low-cost fulfillment through its work on the leisure side with Expedia and others. WorldTravel Partners, the mega agency that shares a parent company with TRX, also benefited from that experience in its creation of its Corporate Fulfillment Services division.
"Eighteen months ago, we thought maybe TRX would offer corporate fulfillment," said TRX CEO Trip Davis in July. "But now we believe travel agencies will drive their own fulfillment options on behalf of corporate clients. There's no question that the industry is moving to multi-tiered, channel-specific pricing, and that it will no longer permit the current fulfillment structure."
Though TRX will sell midmarket e-fulfillment independent of an agency, TRX spokesman Michael Brophy said the service would be cheaper through an agency since that agency can spread costs among multiple customers.
TRX said the new midmarket offering will not compete with low-cost corporate fulfillment services from Amex, TQ3 Maritz, WorldTravel and others. The new offering is, in fact, a bit stripped-down in that TRX will not offer to handle the more costly telephone requests. In this scenario, it would be up to the agency or corporate client to develop their own Help Desk for phone-based online booking support, said.
Brophy said likely beneficiaries include Airlines Reporting Corp.-accredited Corporate Travel Departments. A similar model in the large market exists in Charlotte at First Union, a ResAssist user (BTN, May 21).
TRX formally will name and launch the midmarket suite at an annual client forum Oct. 8-11 in Nashville.