Business Travel News October 27, 2008 - (Page 3)

NEWS Marriott To Export E-Folio Data Capabilities BY MICHAEL B. BAKER Carlton’s U.S. properties. Marriott This month, Marriott Internation- will work with each property indial confirmed that it is poised become vidually to provide e-folio data. the first multibrand company to exInterContinental Hotels Group tend its electronic folio data capa- also continues to cut its number of bilities outside of the United States property management system platas it upgrades and furthers the in- forms globally. A few years ago, it ternational integration of its prop- completed a project to move a large erty management systems. majority of its hotels worldwide to Other multibrand and major ho- the Opera system, allowing for bettel companies—including Hilton, In- ter integration with the central terContinental, Omni and Star- reservation system, improved capwood—continue to make progress ture of guest preferences and easiin integrating such backbone tech- er management of the rate codes. nology as guest data Now, 90 percent of For on-demand Webcasts, and property manageits 3,600 hotels worldsee btnonline.com/Webcasts ment systems. wide are on the Opera These integrations should enable platform, and 95 percent of its hotels travel buyers to get more compre- are on one of three property manhensive data, accelerate negotiations agement systems, said Gustaaf and enhance service for travelers. Schrils, IHG vice president of globMarriott has been working with al technology in the Americas. ComMicros-Fidelio’s Opera property paratively, it was operating on as management system, which is up- many as 26 platforms not long ago. grading its system, to create an in“Outside the country, we made terface so that Marriott can provide huge progress where connectivity e-folio content to its customers. is not as easy and common, creatOpera is the primary system for non- ing one of the most connected and U.S. Marriott hotels and all of Ritz- global real-time hospitality invento- ON THE RECORD Chauffeured car is being hurt very heavily here because people are spending their money very differently. DAV EL PRESIDENT AND CEO SCOTT SOLOMBRINO, PAGE 6 ry and rates databases available,” Schrils said. “Centrally managing these complex systems will improve availability, ease of support and ease to upgrade while benefiting from centralized reporting and contribute to overall corporate responsibility of reducing carbon footprint by generating savings on utilities.” All properties in the Americas, meanwhile, are connected with cenContinued on page 26 Amadeus Names Gutz COO NEWSMAKER CONTENTS October 27, 2008 Issue 666 Vol. 25, No. 15 Inside Track: OAG sees U.S. capacity cuts steepen . . 4 13 Profiles In Travel Mgmt.: Motorola’s mtg. move. . . . . . . 6 AT YOUR SERVICE FEE BTN Research: Corporate jet supply on the rise . . . 10 Buyer Tom Barrett Forum: Airlines ending conflicts of interest? . . . . . . 12 decries fee-ing frenzy. Lodging: Sonesta to expand through franchising . . 14 Travel Mgmt. Tech: Recruiter manages travel . . . . . 16 Destinations: Eurostar progresses in GDSs . . . . . . . 20 Washington Wire: DOT expands NYC air auction . . 26 FIND DAILY NEWS UPDATES AND MORE AT WWW.BTNONLINE.COM BTN (USPS 0728-870, ISSN 8750-3670) is published monthly, except semi-monthly in March, May, July, September and October by Nielsen Business Media Inc.,770 Broadway,New York,NY 10003,tel.646-654-5000,and is distributed free of charge to qualified corporate travel buyers and travel agents specializing in business travel in the United States and Canada. The cost of a subscription to non-qualified subscribers is $119 in the U.S.; $135 in Canada; $135 in Mexico and Central America; $200 in South America and Europe; and $200 in Asia,Africa and Australia; payable in advance in U.S. dollars. Registered for GST as Nielsen Business Media Inc. USA GST No. 124513185. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. 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Amadeus North America this month announced the July appointment of former senior vice president of e-commerce Scott Gutz as COO, after he completed the yearlong Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership. Gutz now oversees the region’s customer support, product development, training, delivery services, contract management and internal IT. Gutz plans to broaden some customer service and support solutions used in the United States to the rest of the Americas, transition some of the region’s internal IT systems onto globally consolidated technology platforms, such as customer relationship management and automated training systems, and provide new travel agency service tools that reduce the reliance on Amadeus for some software programming. “The idea is, can we take what we have developed in other parts of the world, translate it into other languages and localize it by centralizing the development of programs?”Gutz said. In November, Amadeus will launch a program script library that enables its customers’IT teams to manage some internal programming and technology implementations, Gutz said. In the first quarter of 2009, Amadeus plans to implement a Web-based search engine support solution, reducing the need for phone support from the Amadeus helpdesk. During the next 12 months, a standardized global customer relationship management system will be deployed so the company can decrease resolution times and route support calls to any of its service centers. Meanwhile, Gutz now is responsible for garnering new third-party technology and service providers to increase airfare and rate-loading accuracy, and will work on migrating airline customers to the new technology stack by “building all of the new solutions into the agreements going forward.” Also this month, former Expedia vice president of the Americas Joff Romoff joined Amadeus in the new position of vice president of sales, directing agency distribution efforts in the United States, Canada, Guam and Micronesia. In July, Amadeus added IBM veteran Dwayne Ingram as executive vice president of the multinational customer group for the Americas and unveiled plans to centralize some Chicago operations (BTNonline, Aug. 11). —Seth Harris Business Travel News www.BTNonline.com Monday, October 27, 2008 3 http://www.btnonline.com/Webcasts http://WWW.BTNONLINE.COM http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News October 27, 2008

Business Travel News- October 27, 2008
Contents
Inside Track
Profiles In Travel Management
BTN Research
Forum
Lodging
Travel Management Tech
Destinations
Washington Wire

Business Travel News October 27, 2008