Hickory Global Partners, the corporate agency consortium, and TRX, a travel data and technology firm, signed a global data services agreement that they believe will raise the bar on the way member participation in preferred-supplier programs is measured.
Using a customized version of existing TRX software, TRX will produce reports that the partners said would enable suppliers to see daily booking trends across the Hickory network.
In addition, they said, the member agencies will be able to see productivity for Hickory hotel and air products to the level of individual frontline agents. Additional custom reports on booked and used segments will assist agencies with management, based on accurate transaction data produced in real time, they said.
“Enabling segment-level reporting is an important step in serving our users and growing our business,” said Kristin Knous, Hickory’s senior director of revenue planning and analysis. “Our collaboration with a premier data solutions provider like TRX brings the consortium closer to our vision of measurable participation.”
Data will be available in real time, Hickory and TRX said in a joint press statement, adding that all access will be controlled so that no supplier or agency will see any data other than its own.
The applicable TRX program, called TravelTrax, will acquire pre-travel air and hotel data from Hickory agencies each day, enhance and normalize the data and publish standard and custom reports through a Web-based application, Hickory and TRX said.