Airfare & Hotel Price Tracking Technology from Yapta Ushers in New Era in Rate Visibility & Reporting
28 July 2015 - 8:00PM
Business Wire
Corporate Travel Departments Utilizing
Intelligent Price Tracking Data to Save Millions on Travel and
Strengthen Policy Compliance
Yapta, the leader in airfare and hotel price tracking services,
today revealed that enterprise customers using FareIQ, Yapta’s
corporate airfare price tracking solution, and RoomIQ, Yapta’s
hotel price tracking solution, are realizing additional benefits,
beyond automated price optimization. With access to live pricing
data from FareIQ and RoomIQ at their fingertips, corporate Travel
Managers are now better equipped to reinforce their advance booking
policies, safe in the knowledge travelers will not be penalized by
last-minute price fluctuations. They are also using the data to
strengthen their negotiations with travel suppliers that are
becoming more reliant on dynamic pricing strategies.
“Dynamic pricing makes it very difficult for Travel Managers to
not only control costs, but also to rein in travelers that get
enticed to book outside of their travel program because they’ve
suddenly found a cheaper flight or hotel,” said James Filsinger,
President and CEO of Yapta. “In reality, booking outside of the
travel program often destroys purchasing power. The data from
FareIQ and RoomIQ is being used by Travel Managers to convince
their travelers to ‘buy in’ to policy compliance, while also
enhancing their negotiating position with suppliers. With travel
prices expected to rise this year, there’s now real urgency to
initiate price tracking and begin generating this type of data,
before heading back to the negotiating table.”
According to the 2015 Global Travel Price Outlook published by
CWT and the GBTA Foundation, airfare prices are expected to
increase this year by 2.2 percent globally and 2.5 percent in North
America. Meanwhile, hotel prices are expected to rise 2.6 percent
globally in 2015. Yapta’s FareIQ and RoomIQ solutions can help
travel managers and corporations effectively offset these increases
through a seamless implementation and integration into the travel
process.
Furthermore, recent findings from the annual “Travel Management
Priorities” survey from Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), indicate
that more companies plan to implement an airfare tracking solution
to save on ticket prices that may be discounted after booking.
According to CWT’s recent survey, 62 percent of travel managers are
planning to deploy a fare tracking and rebooking solution this
year, ranking second among a dozen travel program priorities.
FareIQ’s patent-pending Intelligent Price TrackingTM technology
provides in-depth, 24x7 analysis and insights into corporate
airfares, spotlighting opportunities to re-book tickets at lower
prices, saving corporations crucial T&E dollars on a daily
basis. The solution integrates seamlessly with agents’ workflow by
dynamically monitoring pricing on individual passenger name records
(PNRs) that are placed on a queue by the corporation or its travel
management company. Upon recognizing a savings opportunity, FareIQ
immediately issues a series of messages, including email alerts, a
FareIQ web portal notification, and remarks posted directly in the
PNR, that enables those savings to be acted upon by an agent.
Companies adopting FareIQ are seeing an opportunity to save on
more than 10 percent of their overall itineraries, with an average
identified savings of $260 per ticket. Any savings identified by
FareIQ on behalf of its customers are over and above any airline
imposed change fees and agency re-booking fees, ensuring customers
see true value to their bottom line.
“The technology has performed very well for many Fortune 100
companies,” Filsinger said. “And in addition to FareIQ, our
customers currently on the Sabre or Apollo platforms are able to
boost their savings by using RoomIQ to track hotel price drops,
providing a remarkable opportunity to save an additional one to two
percent on corporate travel budgets.”
RoomIQ dynamically monitors U.S. domestic and international
hotel bookings across 115 countries, looking for price reductions
at the same hotel and on the same room type. Once a savings
opportunity has been identified, RoomIQ then issues an alert in the
local currency. Companies utilizing RoomIQ are seeing an
opportunity to save on approximately 12 percent of all hotel
bookings tracked – with an average savings of $109 per booking (2.4
room nights on average). Overall, RoomIQ has helped these companies
lower their average daily rate (ADR) by 4.7 percent.
“The intelligence we’re providing customers allows them to be
more nimble from a cost-cutting standpoint,” Filsinger said.
“Instead of operating from data that’s reported every 30 days,
Travel Managers now have immediate visibility into identified
savings opportunities and can take action as it occurs within the
booking path.”
Both FareIQ and RoomIQ provide corporate travel managers with
complete visibility into price tracking performance with
“Fitbit®-like” summary emails that illustrate the true savings to
the bottom line. Users also are provided with real-time portal
access, and highly detailed ad-hoc and quarterly reports.
For more information on how FareIQ and RoomIQ are delivering
real savings to managed travel programs, visit Yapta.com.
About Yapta
Yapta is a pioneer in airfare and hotel price assurance services
for travelers. Launched in 2007 as the travel industry’s first
airfare price tracking and refund alert service, Yapta has
delivered more than $630 million in airfare savings alerts to
consumers and corporations. Today, Yapta’s Intelligent Price
Tracking™ technologies, FareIQ and RoomIQ, are helping companies
reduce spend and extend their T&E budget by constantly tracking
booked airfares and hotels and flagging lower rates when they
become available. For more information about Yapta,
visit www.yapta.com.
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Tailwind PRJeff Pecor, 802-497-1932jeff@tailwindpr.com