GetThere Explores Policy By Fare Bucket, User Hotel Reviews
The Beat - a business travel newsletter
2/14/08
Sabre's GetThere is working on enabling clients to more specifically apply policy controls to airfare types, including the emerging set of so-called branded fares that dice up what you get for what you pay depending on whether you want, for example, a seat assignment, meal or checked baggage. The corporate booking tool provider also will enable companies to "merchandize" their preferred suppliers through a new "company picks" promotional spot, and is looking to incorporate user feedback on hotels.
GetThere general manager Beverly Heinritz highlighted these and other initiatives during a presentation Tuesday at the Ultramar Travel Business Travel Forum. She said GetThere last year enabled the booking of more than $9.4 billion in gross travel, up from $8.1 billion in 2006 and $6.3 billion in 2005. GetThere recorded its seventh-consecutive year of 20 percent transaction growth, and now reports average adoption of 71 percent.
The branded fares initiative--first made available last year to Sabre-connected travel agents--is available "in part" in Australia and New Zealand, where airlines "have led the move to using a select number of branded 'fare families' that have simple, but clearly differentiated rules," according to an August statement by Hans Belle, Sabre Travel Network vice president of marketing. "There are multiple price points with common rules within each 'fare family' that are individually inventory controlled on each flight according to demand."
Such fares also have taken hold with Air Canada and in certain European locales.
"Booking tools are traditionally built for reservations on a round-trip basis," said Heinritz. "Now, maybe you want business class out and the lowest restricted fare back. What we see as coming is applying policy by fare type, and now there can be hundreds of options on the page even for a one-way fare, with different requirements by fare bucket. It may not be okay for you to take the one-way business class that comes up as opposed to one with penalties--or you may not be allowed to buy one that includes food. We're trying to find an elegant way to deliver some of that complicated information. It will be more sophisticated in June."
To help build usage of the system for hotel bookings, GetThere also is planning to enable travelers to post comments about their experiences. "Companies are willing to include user feedback if it can stay within their firewall," said Heinritz. "I think the attachment rate will rise as the experience improves."
Attachment rate is the percentage of bookings that include lodging as well as air components. Heinritz said she is not satisfied that slightly more than half of online bookings contain a hotel reservation, even though that's better than the roughly 30 percent rate offline. At GetThere, "2008 is the year of the hotel-booking path," she said. Some clients over the past couple years have mandated that hotel bookings be made online, and Heinritz said she had heard of one client that actually withholds reimbursement if travelers book a different way (without approval).
Meanwhile, Heinritz attributed last year's increase in booking volume partly to "strong, consistent growth amongst the regional agencies" that participate in GetThere's reseller network. Ultramar Travel is one of those agencies, but Ultramar is also a reseller for Concur Technologies and Rearden Commerce. Another example, Tower Travel Management, resells Rearden, GetThere and TRX's Resx solution.
"We are a reseller for Concur and we're pretty prolific with them," said Ultramar Travel president Peter Klebanow. "Our customers on Cliqbook tend to be those that also benefit from the Concur Expense integration. It's fair to say that different clients have different priorities. In the longer run, those tools may all handle all the functionality that one would want, but we're not in that place yet."
If TMCs "divide out the business, they dilute some of the benefits," said Heinritz, referring to financial incentives they can earn. "But an agency doesn't want to turn away business. Sometimes their clients buy a tool directly. We don't require exclusivity."
GetThere will also remain non-exclusive when it comes to the global distribution systems to which it connects, said Heinritz, although there are benefits to using GetThere with Sabre. "Other GDSs don't approach me often about something new they'd like us to integrate," she quipped.
~ Jay Campbell
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