SCHAUMBURG, IL— In order to assist hotels in capitalizing off the group travel segment, TravelCLICK has partnered with Starcite.com, a corporate travel planning website, to offer hotels electronic marketing that goes straight to the meeting planners. Having launched the Passkey Hotel Direct solution six months ago to assist properties in seamlessly managing their reservations and group processes, TravelCLICK has expanded its group travel focus to now include electronic marketing. As the amount of individual reservations coming into hotels continues to increase, whether via the Internet or GDSs, group reservations still remain as labor-intensive as ever, despite the amount of hotel revenue that is dependant on them. “I’d say close to 0% of the group reservation process is automated,” said Ray Cohen, president/CEO of TravelCLICK. “In five years, I expect about 40% to 50% of business will be made electronically at hotels. And that’s not higher because the other 50% is group business. We’re working on automating the group segment.” Currently the company is beta-testing a new product, expected to officially launch in March 2002, that allows hotels to display electronic text messages and special offers to meeting planners booking travel through Starcite. The combination of promotional and text messages are developed as a collaborative effort between TravelCLICK and the hotel, and are designed to appear only to those travel buyers in the hotel’s destination. For example, if a meeting planner is searching New York on Starcite, a hotel partnered with TravelCLICK that’s located in New York will have its text message automatically displayed to the travel buyer. This feature is similar to TravelCLICK’s existing product for the four GDSs, and online distributors, like Travelocity. “This year, groups are definitely our focus,” said Cohen. “It’s a developing market. We’re carrying over the context behind the products we have proven to work with the GDSs, work with the consumer sites, and which we strongly feel will work with groups.” TravelCLICK also offers a product using Passkey technology that allows hotels to automate their group reservation business. Passkey Hotel Direct allows groups to electronically communicate with a hotel and book reservations after they’ve chosen a designated meeting facility, which provides revenue management and reservation efficiency for the properties. In addition, Cohen stated that TravelCLICK plans to develop products this year geared towards improving hotel website performance, tracking the success of those websites, and organizing and distributing digital property shots to third-party online distributors.
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