Delta Air Lines have launched MYOBTravel, an online travel solution that brings all the power of professional travel management tools to U.S. small businesses.
The one-stop travel Web site enables small business travellers and company travel planners to book airline, car or hotel reservations at one place. The new site, Delta
`s first separately branded Web product, is designed for small businesses with five to 50 travellers that spend less than $500,000 on annual airfare. Steve Scheper, Delta`s managing director for e-Business, Business-to-consumer, said that MYOBTravel creates a one-stop online travel solution for this historically underserved travel segment. “The small business market is the fastest growing segment within the United States and spends billions of dollars in travel annually,” said Scheper.
“We created MYOBTravel to meet the travel needs of this burgeoning market, which represents 25 to 35% of our business. Through our extensive research, we learned this customer group needed an online resource that provides a full breadth of service, and our recent beta test revealed that MYOBTravel is just that solution.”
After a company registers online with its tax ID number, small business travellers or travel planners may use MYOBTravel to book travel arrangements. Unique features include:

* one-stop shop for airlines, rental cars, hotels
* discounts of up to 30%
* search by preferred vendor and/or schedule
* third-party booking
* detailed profiles for all travellers
* user-defined reports summarising company travel
* rewards for travel planners
* no enrollment/transaction fees
* 24-hour travel services.
Delta and Delta Technology, a wholly owned Delta subsidiary, worked with partners e-Travel, headquartered in Boston, and Atlanta-based Worldspan in developing the full-scale online product. Atlanta-based TRX provides online customer support and automated ticket processing and distribution for the site.
MYOBTravel, recently recognised by Entrepreneur Magazine as the best major airline programme for small businesses, is part of Delta`s e-Business unit strategy to develop online distribution channels that meet the needs of the airline`s diverse customer base. Delta estimates that approximately 22% of its ticket sales will emanate from the Web in 2001, including its branded Web site, delta.com, MYOBTravel, the soon-to-be-launched Orbitz, and other online travel agencies.
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