Making reservations for cars and hotels are vital elements of the services Covington provides to our business travelers. By streamlining the process of these reservations, we are able to provide faster service to the individual and help the company control cost, as well as attend to their duty of care responsibilities. Continue reading to find out how new Travelport technology helps both you as a traveler and your company.

Travelport Hospitality Summit

Collectively, accommodations and ground transportation are known as “hospitality” services in the travel industry. As a Travel Management Company, it is our goal, indeed our mandate, to help our corporate clients lower their costs and risks when booking cars and hotels by improving policy compliance and duty of care.

Travelport is the operational platform that powers our travel agency reservation system (GDS). In October, Stefanie Cox, a Covington operations manager, attended the Travelport Hospitality Summit. As a member of an expert panel, she shared Covington’s perspective on technology challenges with travel industry colleagues.

Travelport Technologies That Benefit the Traveler

Booking Technology – Covington utilizes the Travelport booking technology that allows our agents to connect seamlessly to find the best rates fast. It offers advancements such as a gooey interface that gives our agents tremendous efficiency and intelligent rate displays so that we can immediately compare negotiated, consortium, and corporate rates.

Currently, Travelport has 650,000 hotel properties in the system and Covington can work with Travelport to have small, independent properties added to the system, as well. This offers our clients more reliable availability, allows Covington to respond to requests quickly and e¬fficiently, and gives the hotels greater exposure – a win/win for all parties.

To satisfy duty of care, many companies require that hospitality reservations be integrated into the GDS travel reservation so they can track their travelers. Stefanie analyzed Covington’s corporate hotel reservations that were made outside the GDS and provided recommendations to Travelport on how to identify these segments to risk management programs such as iJet and Safe to Go. Travelport just confirmed that they are likely to implement Stefanie’s well-informed suggestions to further enhance the technology.

Exclusive Rates – Travelport negotiated special rates directly with 1,000 hotels in 48 countries. Travelport exclusive rates include at least one benefit not available through other channels. These may include discounted rates up to 30% off best available rate, competitive fully flexible flat rates or added value amenities, e.g., complimentary breakfast or Wi-Fi. These rates are designed to complement existing rate programs, not compete, so they fill the gaps the corporate rate programs my leave.

On the Hospitality Summit expert panel, Stefanie noted that Covington also negotiates hotel rates on behalf of our corporate accounts. Hotels are supposed to load the discount codes into the GDS; however, many hotels don’t understand the technology or process so it doesn’t get done. When this happens, Travelport acts as an intermediary to get the negotiated rates loaded so that we can provide a smooth and efficient reservation process to our travelers.

Drive Me – This new Travelport technology is a “one-stop-shop” for all car needs, including sedan services as well as rental cars. By using it, Covington provides our clients with worldwide coverage of 5,000 car service providers in 1,000 cities. This tool not only offers rate comparisons, including corporate contracted agreements but most importantly, meets a company’s duty of care obligations by ensuring that they know where their travelers are and can contact them even on the last leg of their journey.

Covington is proud to share that Stefanie was integrally involved with the design and testing of the Drive Me Travelport product. Her understanding of the pain points of car reservations for both the agent and the traveler contributed to the implementation of an improved technology and raises the bar on ground transportation reservations.

Business Travel is more than just booking airline tickets. Our comprehensive business travel management programs are designed to manage corporate risk and satisfy Duty of Care while making travel more convenient. To find out more about how Covington can assist your corporate travel program, contact our Business Travel Services team.