Airfare and hotel price tracking services provider Yapta has announced the full release of its automated rebooking solution, bringing to market a touchless technology for the corporate travel industry.
The automated technology is capable of rebooking “savings eligible” hotel reservations directly within the Sabre GDS without the need for agent assistance and without disrupting the traveller’s itinerary, according to Yapta.
By utilising the solution, the company says customers have seen savings opportunities converted at a higher rate, resulting in greater savings levels and decreased agency costs. On average, Yapta claims clients see a 30 per cent increase in savings and a decrease of 35 per cent in agent-related costs.
The company says it has saved customers US$75 million in actual bottom line savings using RoomIQ.
Utilising Yapta’s Best Match functionality, corporate travel managers can green-light specific hotel reservations for automated rebooking. By configuring Best Match settings, they can also select from a set of key hotel criteria to determine the best match for their company – including properties with the same rate code, bed type, room type, same or better cancellation policy and same or better amenities. They can also target hotels with negotiated rates only and with no commissionable rates.
Yapta says the functionality helps ensure zero traveller impact and higher rates of travel policy compliance.
Valerie Layman, chief product and services officer, said: “When travel managers are already seeing up to four per cent savings on their hotel spend, why wouldn’t they want automation? And because we tie automation to a company’s Best Match settings, there is no downside for a travel manager.
“There’s been great demand from our customers for our automated hotel rebooking functionality. They’ve already seen how well our automated airfare rebooking functionality performs, so this was the logical next step. However, as always, preserving the traveller’s itinerary was a top priority.”
President and CEO James Filsinger added: “Airfare and hotel price tracking are now table stakes for corporate travel programmes and procurement departments around the world. Automating the rebooking process when savings are available is a huge leap forward for our customers and it raises the technology bar for the corporate travel industry.”
yapta.com