Cendant TDS Launches Advanced Rate Loading Tool
Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services Division announced today the launch of a new products for hotel groups to manage and distribute their rates.
EasyAccess Plus - RateManagersm is the latest enhancement to the EasyAccess Plus suite of products, available to hoteliers worldwide through the Division’s WizCom unit. EasyAccess Plus - Rate Manager was developed to address the significant challenges hotels face using existing manual rate loading systems. Manual rate loading systems are often the cause of frequent errors and take excessive time to deliver rates to distribution partners, resulting in increased costs and lost revenue opportunities. Manual systems are further challenged by the hotel’s need to have accurate and timely loading of negotiated rates into the GDS (Global Distribution System) in order to garner more sales and satisfy travel agent customers.
EasyAccess Plus - RateManager is a Web-based internet application that provides hotels with the ability to quickly and accurately initialize, populate and manage all rate data for storage and distribution to the four GDSs.
An enhancement to EasyAccess Plus - Rate Create, the product is designed to allow customers to ‘mass transfer’ their rate information simultaneously to multiple GDSs through one entry point, rather than separately to each GDS as was formerly the alternative. Clients are now able to create a profile of specific negotiated rate codes at the chain level, which can then be transferred and activated at the property level. By routing the data through a single interface, EasyAccess Plus - RateManager significantly improves the accuracy of the rate information being delivered in a time efficient and effective manner.
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Through EasyAccess Plus - Rate Manager, WizCom’s hotel clients can now create, modify, and delete rates across their entire portfolio of hotels in just minutes. This was a process that once took days, weeks and often months. With a significantly reduced timeframe to deliver rates to their distribution sources, such as the GDSs, online channels and travel agencies, EasyAccess Plus - RateManager offers hoteliers the opportunity to realize significant cost savings and reduce or redeploy resources formerly spent on the manual loading process. Additionally, the product improves revenue streams, as rates are loaded in a timely fashion, meeting seasonal opportunities and/or negotiated rate contracts.
Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts, an early adopter of the product, continues to see valuable time and cost savings with EasyAccess Plus - Rate Manager, which it recently implemented to improve rate loading for its 135 luxury properties operating in more than 56 countries.
“By utilizing EasyAccess Plus - RateManager, we have managed to turn an issue of headache proportions into one that generates significant cost and time-saving benefits for us, as well a more accurate and timely delivery of information to our clients,” said Heather Blaseby, Vice President of Distribution, Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts.
“This new tool makes it much easier for our valuable hotel clients to maintain the data they transmit to the GDS and results in considerable savings on money formerly spent on the process, not to mention the revenue gained from the ability to add new rates so quickly,” said Michael W. McCormick, senior vice president of hospitality & leisure services for Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services Division. “Furthermore, RateManager gives hotels the ability to focus less time and money on their manual processes, such as rate loading, and more on their sales and marketing to drive profits.”
Future release enhancements will include bi-directional XML interfaces to NBTA (National Business Travel Association) compliant* RFP software vendor applications (corporate and consortia) and Central Reservation Systems (CRS). Planned release is in June 2004.
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