PIGEON FORGE, Tenn.
-- Online group booking may get greater traction as Orbitz introduced group
hotel bookings in partnership with Group Travel
Planet (GTP).
From the Orbitz
hotel page, consumers can select a Need 5 rooms
or more? option. They then are transferred to a co-branded Web
site, where they can access discounted group rates from more than
10,000 properties in the U.S. and Canada, according to Group Travel
Planet.
Group Travel Planets
group booking engine means that Orbitz customers can now plan every
step of their group hotel reservation online -- from reserving the
rooms to receiving e-mail reservation confirmations to providing
and updating room lists, said Scott Harness, GTPs president and
CEO.
GTP has automated
the way that its hotel partners allocate inventory and enabled
them, if they desire, to establish two rate tiers, one for five to
nine rooms and another for 10 or more rooms, Harness
said.
He said GTPs booking
engine is fully automated, although customers have the option of
handling the process over the phone, as well.
With the GTP
agreement, Orbitz became the second major online agency to
establish a group booking feature. Earlier this year, Travelocity
partnered with GTP rival Groople.
In other
developments, Groople opened offices in Paris and Denver, and said
it will soon introduce group-booking capabilities for air, car,
cruise and rail.
To contact
reporter Dennis Schaal, send e-mail to [email protected].