DALLAS - Traxo, Inc., a global leader in corporate travel data capture and pre-trip auditing, announced its partnership with Plano, Texas-based Business Travel Performance (BTP) Automation to launch the industry’s first fully automated solution for hotel RFP (request for proposal) and program management that is specifically designed to save time and create maximum, quantifiable savings on ALL corporate hotel bookings, including those booked “off channel,” or outside a company’s corporate travel program.
The new service - the BTP Index - leverages robotic process automation (RPA) via a robust data analytics platform, and will serve to transform the historically complex, cumbersome, and time and resource- consuming ”hotel RFP season” into an easier to manage, self-tuning corporate hotel negotiated rate program.
The BTP Index automatically and dynamically monitors and renegotiates hotel program terms and conditions, while providing the travel manager with recommended, automated corrective actions that can increase lodging savings, by ensuring hotels remain accountable to the rate commitments they’ve already agreed to, while improving their travel program’s policy compliance through pre-trip auditing. BTP’s automated creation of the hotel bid list serves to relieve travel buyers of the single most laborious task in the annual procurement cycle.
“The main issue that inhibits comprehensive management of a preferred hotel program is that typically HALF of all hotel reservations are invisible as a result of ‘rogue’ bookings made outside of a company’s mandated booking tool,” said Traxo Chief Executive Andres Fabris, “Therefore, all those off-platform hotel bookings are almost never rate-verified, or counted toward hotel supplier volume discounts.”
BTP Automation’s Founder Fernando Avila noted, “With the comprehensive pre-trip visibility that only Traxo can provide, our combined BTP/Traxo solution can now monitor ALL hotel bookings in real-time. Through extensive data analytics, the system provides fully automated corrective actions such as re-booking or re-submitting hotel chain and/or property RFPs to drive better compliance and improve overall hotel program performance.”
The new BTP platform benefits all of the parties typically involved in the annual hotel program process that historically takes four to six months to implement:
- Corporate travel managers gain complete visibility into their hotel program data on a daily basis, which allows them to be proactive and accountable to their executive management as they will now be able to, for the first time, predict exactly how well the company is performing against stated policy.
- Hotel revenue managers are provided with a very simple, easy-to-use proposal response tool that includes the historical corporate booking data from that particular company. This streamlines operations and allows a single resource to manage multiple properties easily and efficiently.
- Travel Management Companies (TMCs) will benefit from improved travel program compliance, which in turn will drive more revenue through increased hotel attachment, as well as enhanced duty of care for their clients’ travelers.
With the BTP Index (essentially a hotel program “credit score”) in place, corporate travel departments benefit from:
- Complete visibility into hotel program management.
- Detailed analytics and fully automated corrective actions to maintain policy compliance, pre trip.
- Constant tuning and refinement of the hotel program, essentially eliminating the dreaded RFP season.
- Automated creation of the initial hotel bid list.
- No more cumbersome and excessive manual reporting.
- Average savings of 14% on total hotel spend.
BTP Automation CEO Bruce Yoxsimer commented, “Automating the retail travel booking process 25 years ago dramatically changed an entire industry. Likewise, by delivering accurate, actionable data and automating cumbersome, manual processes, BTP Automation is transforming corporate hotel program management as we know it.”
As part of this launch, BTP and Traxo are providing eligible corporate travel departments with a no-risk, free 60-day audit, for complete visibility into the corporate hotel program.
Tags: Traxo, Inc., Plano