NTM Rogers is Online Expert Angela Rogers, Manager of the Northwestern Travel Management Online Booking Service Center, presented statistics to help attendees measure their level of online booking participation. The NTM Online Booking Service Center works primarily with Worldspan Trip Manager.

Angela Rogers is NTM Manager of the Online Booking Service Center

• 24 accounts are currently booking through the Online Booking Service Center.
• 10% of NTM online booking transactions are fully booked online with no agent involvement.
• The highest NTM client adoption rate - with a very strong corporate mandate - is nearly 100%. Several smaller accounts with under $1million in air volume are between 75% and 90% online booking rate. A larger client with $14 million air volume is moving past 18% adoption rate for online booking transactions.
• The highest levels of online bookings are found in corporations where this technology is mandated.
• Average ticket prices are lower with online-booked corporate products. Why? Users who can see choices on the screen tend to choose lower priced options.
• Research indicates that second-generation products that are more user-friendly and automatically include corporate policy filters also increase corporate usage.
• The NTM Online Booking Service Center is unique in offering three levels of online booking options:
  1. Fully self-booked with no agent assistance.
  2. Partially agent assisted.
  3. Normal full-service agent booking.
  Corporate customers get monthly reports indicating percentages of tickets in each category.

NTM corporate account managers have information on Trip Manager and the capabilities of the NTM Online Booking Service Center.

NTM Travel Manager Special Edition editor, Jim Stack