Travel commerce platform Travelport and Groupize have joined forces to roll out a new cloud-based mobile booking tool designed to save time and help boost revenue for travel management companies.
The new online booking tool will allow TMCs to source, book, track and manage small group meetings of under 25 hotel rooms or less than 50 participants, the companies said.
The solution, which was developed by Boston-based Groupize and integrated with Travelport's platform, provides TMCs access to a dedicated groups and meetings portal as well as preferred hotels, negotiated rates, competing bids, approval tracking, a communication engine and online bookings with passenger name records.
The result is drastically reduced procurement time.
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"Automating small group bookings has been a top request from the travel agency community," said Travelport's Global Head of Hospitality Sales Tracie Carillo in a statement.
"The ability to easily integrate group bookings into the workflow will dramatically increase revenue, with minimal effort," Carillo added. "Today's announcement further strengthens Travelport's hospitality offering and helps achieve growth in the important corporate travel space."
In his own statement, Groupize CEO Charles de Gaspe Beaubien pointed out that "up to 80 percent of small groups and meetings are bypassing managed travel programs, regardless of policies or procedures."
"Most companies do not have visibility into the frequency or costs associated with this category of travel," he added. "Groupize's solution simplifies the entire multi-room booking process from start to finish, maximizing efficiencies, savings, data and compliance. Instead of looking at small groups and meetings as insignificant, it becomes a way to generate new business for TMCs while adding value to their clients."
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