Altour Collaborates with Three Tech Providers for Seamless Off-Channel Bookings
Altour has launched a product to capture, report on and provide rebooking capabilities for off-channel bookings, the travel management company announced.
Altour Capture works through a “partnership approach,” with three technology providers each contributing one of those elements to the product, said Lee Thomas, Altour chief operating officer and president of business travel. Off-channel bookings are captured by CapTrav, a technology that, similar to such tools as Traxo, can identify booking confirmations with a company’s email server and capture and normalize such relevant data as a hotel’s address or an airline ticket number.
CapTrav president and KesselRun Corporate Travel Solutions cofounder Brandon Strauss said airline leakage for corporate travel programs tends to run around 15 percent, while hotel leakage is usually at 40 percent or more, based on KesselRun’s study of off-channel bookings.
Prime Numbers Technology is providing the reporting for the product, with the “seamless integration of CapTrav’s data into the Prime Analytics platform,” according to Prime Numbers Technology president Mark Bresnahan. With the reporting, travel managers can see whether travelers’ claims of “I found it cheaper online” are true and make decisions on travel policy to optimize compliance, Thomas said.
“Now the travel manager for the first time can see a side-by-side comparison about what’s happening in the TMC space around the main program and also their unmanaged programs, and the price comparisons,” he said.
Oversee, the recently rebranded FairFly, is providing the reshopping capabilities for off-channel bookings in the product. Altour already is offering reshopping for in-channel bookings, so this will be an extension of that to cover the off-channel comparisons as well, according to Thomas.
Altour is part of Internova Travel Group, which formed following its merger with Travel Leaders Group.
Michael B. Baker www.businesstravelnews.com