Northwestern Travel Management Beats the Internet In First Match-Up With Clients

MINNEAPOLIS -- Three seasoned, client Web surfers and 15 client observers attended a friendly Internet match-up at Northwestern Travel Management on January 19, 2000. While there was a mild sense of competition, the event's true objective was to give clients real-world knowledge about price, efficiency and other benefits of the managed agent-booking process verses the unmanaged Internet self-booking process.

The Rules
Clients Becky Thomsen of MSI Insurance, Jill Pritchard of Musicland Group Inc. and Patricia Therens of Syntegra each came prepared with a typical business traveler's itinerary.

Jennifer Kopp, one of Northwestern Travel Management's top commercial agents, was given each itinerary, one at a time, just as though she was receiving a normal reservation request.

Then the Client, using Northwestern Travel Management's super fast T1 Internet connection, and Agent Kopp, using Worldspan's agent-reservation system, begin their booking processes, as the stopwatch started.

Round one: MSP to Phoenix -- Air, Car and Hotel
MSI's Becky Thomsen connected to Web sites for Sun Country Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Extended Stay Inn and Budget.

For air, both challengers found a $209 fare on Sun Country but Agent Kopp also landed a Northwest flight at the same price. The client observers agreed that travelers would prefer Northwest for frequent flyer miles.

For car, Agent Kopp snared a $24 per day convertible from Budget. Client Thomsen found a more conservative sedan at $26 on Budget's Web site. Client observers had no trouble jumping on the spiffy ragtop; plus they said saving two bucks would make them feel like good corporate citizens.

For hotel, the Extended Stay Web site offered MSI's Client Thomsen a $64 room, unavailable through Worldspan. However, Northwestern Travel Management's Agent Kopp secured the same rate with a phone call, a standard procedure, Kopp explained, when Worldspan shows "sold out."

First round advantage to Northwestern Travel Management's Agent Kopp who was able to get frequent flyer miles, a discounted convertible and save seven minutes in the process. Agent Kopp: 4 minutes, 45 seconds; Client Thomsen: 11 minutes, 45 seconds.

Round two: MSP to Indianapolis -- Air, Car, Hotel
Musicland's Jill Pritchard connected to Trip.com.

For air, both challengers found connections on United through Chicago. Agent Kopp, however, beat Trip.com on the fare at $402 versus $425.

For car, Northwestern Travel Management's Agent Kopp posted a clear edge with a $41.50 National Car rate versus $75 for Client Pritchard at Trip.com. Phone calls by Client Pritchard to National may have lowered the rate, but client observers quickly pointed out that any time advantage of online booking is diminished if phone calls are needed.

For hotel, both found Comfort Inn at nearly the same rate of $49 for Agent Kopp and $51 for Client Pritchard.

Second round advantage to Northwestern Travel Management's Agent Kopp for cost and time savings. Musicland's Client Pritchard on Trip.com. spent valuable extra time attempting to enter a corporate ID number for National Car, which was not possible, and in a frustrating process for booking Comfort Inn. Agent Kopp: 8 minutes, 45 seconds; Client Pritchard: 12 minutes, 19 seconds.

Round three: Hartford, CT, to Phoenix -- Air Only
Syntegra's Pat Therens connected to Travelocity.com.  

For air, both challengers found a Saturday night stay fare of $291 requiring connections. Agent Kopp booked American Airlines which allows pre-selection of seats, through Chicago. Client Therens booked a Southwest connection; however Southwest does not allow seat selection in advance of departure.

Round three (tied on price and time) advantage to Northwestern Travel Management's Kopp for finding a flight with seat selection. Especially for a flight four plus hours, client observers preferred the "luxury" of American's seat selection which Southwest and other low-cost carriers do not offer.

Client Observers and Client Surfers Discuss Advantages & Disadvantages of Managed Agent-Booking and Unmanaged Internet Self-Booking

• Records of any unused tickets are kept in the managed agent-booking process and used for future trips. Not so for unmanaged Internet self-booking.
• Lower fares, upgrades and better seats are monitored 24-hours per day by Northwestern Travel Management's automation software that can reserve them without human intervention or alert the booking agent who then calls the customer. Unmanaged Internet self-bookings are paid for immediately which makes changes either impossible or cumbersome.
• Corporate travel policy can be enforced through the managed agent-booking process. Agents also offer preferred vendor rates, helping control corporate travel costs and achieve volume discounts. Not so for unmanaged Internet self-booking.
• Agent interaction with advice and tips on destinations and vendors are routinely provided during the managed agent-booking process. Not so for unmanaged Internet self-booking.
• Corporate time is not well spent on unmanaged Internet self-booking, although Internet travel sites are good research tools. The agency relationship allows corporate clients to attend to their "real" jobs, which, client observers noted, is a better allocation of corporate human resources.
• Monthly management reports on corporate travel transactions, available through the managed agent-booking process, aid vendor negotiations, improve travel policy enforcement and strengthen corporate control of travel costs. Monthly management reports are not available with unmanaged Internet self-booking.
• Researching airfares, times and hotel options on the Internet can be a valuable use of time if it enables faster and more succinct transactions with an agent. Although travelers can log on to travel sites from home or hotel rooms, Northwestern Travel Management agents are a phone call away, from any location on Earth, at anytime.
• Cost of using Web travel sites is basically free to users, whereas all travel management companies charge fees for their services. Client observers agreed that "free" unmanaged Internet self-booking should be compared with some corporate agency agreements that return commissions to clients.

Client Observers and Client Surfers also Discuss the Middle Ground: Managed Self-Booking

Between managed agent-booking and unmanaged Internet self-booking lies the Northwestern Travel Management/Worldspan Internet booking product, Trip Manager, a managed self-booking tool.

Managed self-booking, with Trip Manager, means the client does the up front booking -- completing Trip Manager's blank fields for flight number, fare, seat, car and hotel -- and a Northwestern Travel Management agent does the backend ticketing, quality control, fulfillment and reporting. In exchange for the client's efforts, Northwestern Travel Management reduces its fee. But there's more after booking.

After the client completes the self-booking steps, the reservation created in Trip Manager is automatically queued, through the Internet, to Northwestern Travel Management agents who take the remaining steps: quality control (e.g. checking if a lower fare could be waitlisted for the chosen flight, or making sure two hotels have not been booked for the same night); ticketing (checking if any previously unused non-refundable ticket could be used for the chosen flight); fulfillment (back office accounting, payment, data collection); and, reporting (i.e. creating monthly management reports on individual and total corporate travel activity).

Because of the steps Northwestern Travel Management takes, the client enjoys peace-of-mind knowing their self-booked reservation is accurately and efficiently managed. Additionally, managed self-booking allows the client to call Northwestern Travel Management anytime from anywhere to get help with changes quickly and easily.

Unmanaged Internet self-booking means travelers are on their own.

What the Participants Said
Becky Thomsen, MSI Insurance:
"Even though people use the Internet every day and get pretty good at it, the travel agent was a lot faster making the bookings. I became aware that all the extra time to book on the Internet can't be a very efficient use of company time. If Web sites show full or unavailable, I' d have to call the vendor myself to find space. It's more efficient when Northwestern Travel Management makes those calls. I was glad to see all the information Northwestern Travel Management agents keep on record with the agents, like any unused tickets we might have."

Jill Pritchard, Musicland Group Inc.:
"There was a lot more information from the agents than I realized, I'd never seen them work, in person. I think the Web's biggest potential value is to find low airfares; the hotel and car information didn't seem as reliable. The Internet won't allow us to use our corporate rates or net deals with hotels. I think corporate auditors prefer the extra information from Northwestern Travel Management regarding lowest airfares which are hard to determine on Web sites, they just display one "lowest" and we can't really compare."

Pat Therens of Syntegra (a customer of Trip Manager):
"If more people saw all the information agents have available, they'd be amazed. The Web can be helpful for bringing low fares to the attention of our agents. With Trip Manager, when travelers can actually see lower fares on their PC, they're more likely to book them than when they just hear about it. [When talking to an agent] there's a more direct link for giving either complaints or compliments to Northwestern Travel Management versus online sites. We can get instant feedback at Northwestern Travel Management, we have someone to talk to."

Star Tribune Publishes Leisure "Showdown" Three Days after Northwestern Travel Management Match-Up
The Sunday, January 23, 2000 Star Tribune Variety section ran a leisure travel article by Chris Welsch paralleling very closely the event Northwestern Travel Management hosted for business travel. Mr. Welsch gave his St. Paul travel agent three days to find the best deal for a European trip he would also research on the Web. They'd see who was fastest and cheapest. Result? Remarkably similar to what the participants discovered at Northwestern Travel Management. The Internet is a great resource with vast amount of information. But corralling that information into a usable form with confidence that the final product is really the best value is a sometime proposition. The reporter spent over 8 hours of his own time and couldn't beat his agent. To read for yourself, the exact electronic journey taken by Mr. Welsch and his agent, please call Northwestern Travel Management or visit www.startribune.com for a reprint of the article.