Business Travel News - April 6, 2009 - (Page 21)

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT Multinationals Seeking To Enhance Travel Technology In Brazil BY SETH HARRIS As Brazil becomes a more significant travel management target of many multinational corporations, many struggle with travel content complexities that remain a roadblock to corporate travel technology development. In 2005, the two largest Brazilian carriers, TAM and Gol, pulled all their domestic content out of the GDSs, removing more than 90 percent of the country’s total domestic inventory. In lieu of the traditional GDS model, TAM and Gol required that bookings at the Brazilian point of sale be made through their direct channels, including their Web sites. To entice travelers to book direct, TAM and Gol last year detached commissions from fares booked through the direct channel. Bookings through travel management companies carry as much as 10 percent commissions as part of the fare. Today, 85 percent of Brazilian airline and hotel content is outside of the GDSs, although a lot of hotel inventory resides in CMNet, a hotel booking engine. The lack of access to airline and hotel content through a centralized system has stunted corporate online booking tool growth, “When they left the GDS, our operational costs which has settled at around 10 percent, accord- increased a lot,” said Fernando Vasconcellos, diing to GDS and TMC executives. rector of sales for FCm Travel Solutions’ BrazilBrazil and Mexico alone drive more than half of ian partner Kontik Franstur. the travel business in Latin America and the In 2007, Kontik, which processes $200 million Caribbean, according to Sabre Travel Network in annual travel sales, built its own booking ensenior vice president of the Americas Jay Jones. gine, which melded content from the airlines’ diUntil the global economic crisis rect Web sites and the Sabre GDS. slowed corporate travel passenger Access the Amadeus and Sabre Travel Net2009 Corporate Travel Index work also built new booking engines volume growth to just 6 percent last see btnonline.com/perdiem year, the country experienced sevto incorporate all content, albeit not eral years of double-digit percentage-point in- in their host systems. Travelport this spring is recreases, according to Travelport Brazil country leasing the corporate version of its Panorama sysmanager Sidney Alonso. tem, which it has been using for leisure travel. Meanwhile, the airlines’ GDS pullout increased Even with the consolidated content, the lack of agent processing times and in turn transaction consistency creates a difficult operating environfees. A domestic transaction previously took 2.5 ment for TMCs, GDSs and corporate travel buyminutes to complete, but now averages more ers trying to manage growing programs. than nine minutes, according to Alonso. According to Alonso, out of the 65 million segFaced with massive losses of content and de- ments booked in Brazil last year, the three GDSs creased incentives and commissionable book- only processed 12 million. “The bottom line is ings, travel management companies and GDS that we have no relevant domestic content in the providers developed their own single-entry ag- system,” said Alonso. “Last year, TAM also took Continued on page 22 gregated content portals. Life on the road. Without the usual roadblocks. Give your travelers just what they need to be at home on the road: a free fitness center, a comfortable work space, a fully equipped kitchen, free internet, free guest laundry and more. www.CandlewoodSuites.com/home Business Travel News www.BTNonline.com Monday, April 6, 2009 21 http://www.btnonline.com/perdiem http://www.CandlewoodSuites.com/home http://www.CandlewoodSuites.com/home http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - April 6, 2009

Business Travel News - April 6, 2009
Contents
Inside Track: Carriers Await Joint Venture Approval
Profiles In Travel Mgmt.: Booz Allen Restructures
Forum: Iwamoto, Whitesage on Recession’s Impact
Aviation: TMCs Deploy FlightStats’ Travel Alerts
Lodging: Global Rates Drop; Lane CEO DeForrest
Travel Mgmt.: Cos. Advance Brazilian Tech

Business Travel News - April 6, 2009