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Article Excerpt
Online booking tool providers are stepping up their attempts to adapt their products to the demands of the fragmented and complex European corporate travel market, but, while making strides, no vendor has developed a pan-European online booking solution.
Recent improvements include the creation of more content, ranging from all-important rail inventory to independent hotels, fourth-cabin airline seats and electronic airline passes. Greater attention also is being paid to increasing the sophistication of policy control. The introduction of second-generation technology in some of the tools, using more versatile forms is of development language, is starting to provide the greater flexibility the market has craved.
The slower growth of booking tools in Europe has long been attributed to a belief that they are insufficiently sensitive to diverse local needs. Now the view of providers and the experts who work with them is that they have successfully addressed most concerns, even if still more needs to be done. "The majority of vendors are adapting to key European requirements, but there is not yet a single tool that can be regarded as the complete solution for Europe," said Emmanuel Guirado, vice president of product development for the American Express Interactive Travel Group.
"I totally agree," said Floyd Widener, vice president of corporate for EMEA at Sabre, which owns U.S. market leader GetThere. "There is no one tool."
Guirado thinks the main inhibitor has been that although the tools all claim to work...
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