Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | B | Business Travel News

European online tools add rail, other features.

Article Excerpt
Corporate booking tool providers last month introduced several features to improve European self-booking, including the inclusion of more rail content--generally a must-have in Europe. Other features include booking screens that display both air and rail options on the same route, consumer-site-style screens with options prioritized by price, one-way airfares and such tool administration enhancements as profile integration.

The enhancements were featured at the Business Travel Show in London, where U.K.-based travel management company P&O Business issued a report on changes it has seen in booking tools, which it tracks through a product evaluation process it calls SBT Matrix. The matrix scores eight tools available in the United Kingdom, using up to 62 criteria. Analyzing changes to the scores achieved by each tool in the past year, P&O said there have been significant improvements, such as the ability to work in multiple languages and currencies and with multiple global distribution systems. Booking times also quickened and the tools are performing better at low-fare searches as they extend their sourcing beyond GDS inventory.

Still, said P&O, self-booking tools remain unsatisfactory in other respects. These include inability to recognize the finer points of travel policy and, most crucially, the failure to calculate reduced fares for anything more complicated than...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!