Online marketplace for corporate travelers promises a smooth takeoff
For corporate travelers sick of paying travel agents high commissions, Oracle Corp. has come up with a less turbulent solution.
Earlier this year, e-Travel Inc. – a unit of the software maker – introduced the e-Travel Marketplace (www.e-travel.com), an e-commerce corporate travel service.
Three of the five major U.S. airlines – Continental, Delta and, most recently, American Airlines – now participate, enabling corporations to tap travel suppliers through Internet links and save time and money in the process, says Bart Littlefield, vice president of marketing for the Waltham, MA-based company.
“Corporations typically pay travel agencies a $75 fee for a reservation,” says Littlefield, “but they pay us only $15 or $16 for the same service.”
E-Travel also created an Internet ticketing and customer support network.
Previously, e-Travel’s corporate clients either booked their travel through the direct supplier links or built an itinerary and then made reservations through a travel agency.
Specifically, the company uses its eTLink technology to gives its customers access to schedules, seat inventory and fares at the lowest total cost.
With the recent addition of American Airlines, e-Travel will be able to offer its customers direct access to 40% of the available airline seats in the U.S. domestic market.
Another new feature, the Internet Business Trip (IBT), eliminates such activities as printing and mailing itineraries, resulting in lower costs for users. IBT also offers fulfillment services like e-mail and phone-based support, with a three-tier pricing structure designed to help lower risk and administrative costs.
So far, the company has affiliations with Pegasus Solutions (which represents 150 hotel chains worldwide), Hertz Corp., Avis, National Rent-a-Car and Amtrak. It’s seeking additional affiliations, Littlefield notes.
E-Travel already has signed on such corporations as Ingersoll-Rand Corp., Philip Morris Corp. and Joseph E. Seagram & Sons as users.
To promote itself, the company has been running space ads in travel industry trade magazines like Air Transport World. And it is about to embark on a permission-based e-mail marketing effort to travel departments at large corporations.
The firm is also doing a lot of marketing through seminars and industry trade conferences. Recent events were held in San Diego, Chicago and Minneapolis, with upcoming events slated for Cambridge, MA and Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Littlefield declines to make any revenue projections.
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