Hickory Global Partners, the corporate agency consortium, and TRX, the travel data and technology firm, signed a global data-services agreement that they said would raise the bar on the way Hickory's participation in preferred-supplier programs is monitored and measured.
It will also provide vastly improved capabilities for suppliers and agency managers to act quickly if they spot problems, both companies said.
Using a customized version of an existing TRX program called TravelTrax, the project, which will launch in mid-September, will enable each participating supplier to monitor daily booking trends for its business across the Hickory network and by agency. Suppliers also will see aggregate booking trends among Hickory agencies and thus be able to compare their results with the marketplace at large.
According to TRX, Hickory is the first travel business to use TravelTrax in this fashion.
Currently, suppliers have access to the same information by IATA number through the GDSs and other sources, but with significant time differences.
Brian Harniman, Hickory executive vice president, said the differences are that with TravelTrax, hotel personnel, for example, will have daily access to the data at multiple levels, down to the level of property managers.
In addition, the data, available through a Web-based application, will be presented in dashboard form, he said, so recipients can see and understand trends daily and take immediate action, if necessary.
If a hotel company sees it is doing badly with one agency, he said, it could simply ask the reason and arrange relevant training if that seems to be the appropriate solution.
Chris Dane, a strategic adviser for Hickory, said that without TravelTrax, the suppliers see the GDS data at the close of each month or even quarterly, and without TRX massaging.
Consortia typically see data even later, 45 or 60 days after the end of the quarter, Harniman said, and typically they are relying solely on the suppliers for that information. This is the case for mega-agencies, not just for consortia, he added.
As for Hickory members, they will be able to monitor productivity for Hickory hotel and air products to the level of individual frontline agents, according to the press release announcing the deal.
Additional custom reports on booked and used segments will assist managers as well, Hickory said, adding that TravelTrax is the first program to reconcile bookings and completed travel for agents.
Hickory said that members, as part of their agreements with the consortium, have given permission to release their specific data to suppliers. But Hickory added that all access to data will be controlled so that no company — supplier or agency — will see any information other than its own. TravelTrax will acquire the air and hotel data from the GDSs.
Tom Tulloch, TRX senior vice president for business intelligence and consulting services, said Hickory's use of TravelTrax could be adapted to any agency or agency trade group's business. The only requirement, he said, is that the business produces a data record, which could then be funneled into any of a number of report types. Typically, he said, leisure groups don't have the "deep pockets" to fund this kind of project.
He predicted that Hickory's TravelTrax application "will produce a fundamental change in how business is managed [by Hickory and members], and that will get the suppliers' attention."