ATLANTA -- Worldspan announced that OpenTable.com has
signed on to become an Internet vendor on the CRS company's
Worldspan on the Web.
OpenTable.com provides the travel manager access to the on-line
reservations books of approximately 1,000 restaurants in 18 cities
across the U.S., said Sid Gorham, vice president of business
development at OpenTable.com.
Travel agents that use Worldspan Go!, the company's Web-based
CRS, to book travel for their corporate and leisure customers now
have a link to OpenTable.com on the Worldspan Go! site.
Also, corporate customers that use Trip Manager, Worldspan's
Web-based self-booking tool, have an OpenTable link on their
desktop.
"OpenTable gives the travel agency another opportunity to charge
for a service," said Cheryl Weldon, Worldspan's director of
marketing for worldwide travel distribution.
"With travel agents having access to that type of information,
it continues to position them very well to be the travel manager
for their corporate clients."
OpenTable.com, whose service also is available to those that
visit its consumer Web site, is pleased that its service is now in
the hands of a "power user" that deals with business travelers
every day, said Gorham.
"OpenTable has a great opportunity with B-to-B play," said
Weldon. "They are gaining access to thousands of people that can
distribute their product."
"Obviously, travel agents are very important to us," said
Gorham. "We concentrate on high-end, destination restaurants, which
is a great match with the business traveler."
Gorham added that business travelers often are on the road and
pressed for time. Therefore, it might be easier for an agent to
make a reservation on OpenTable.com than it is for the traveler to
make that reservation himself on a PC.
There is a $1-per-diner transaction fee charged to restaurants
for reservations made on OpenTable.com.
Worldspan and OpenTable will share revenue earned on
reservations made on OpenTable via Worldspan Go!. Both parties
declined to divulge how the transaction revenue will be split.
Other vendors featured on Worldspan on the Web include e2e Golf,
a company that gives agents access to tee time reservation bookings
on line, and ResortSeminars.com, a site that enables agents to book
travel packages for clients sponsoring business seminars in resort
locations.
OpenTable.com serves 1,000 eateries in 18
cities
SAN FRANCISCO -- OpenTable.com, a company that launched its Web
site in August 1999, serves the restaurant community by converting
paper reservations books to electronic files.
According to Sid Gorham, OpenTable's vice president of business
development, his company's service has expanded to 18 cities in the
past year.
The Web site's core cities are San Francisco, Chicago and New
York, as about 200 restaurants in each of them are registered with
OpenTable. In all, approximately 1,000 restaurants have signed on
with OpenTable, said Gorham.
In order to become part of the OpenTable network, restaurants
pay a one-time fee for the installation of touch-screen PCs: $599
for the first terminal and $549 for each additional one.
The subscription rate for restaurants is $169 per month for the
first terminal and $119 per month for any additional terminals. On
average, said Gorham, OpenTable clients have 1.8 terminals.
Furthermore, there is a transaction fee of $1 per diner for
reservations that are made via OpenTable.com. Typically,
OpenTable.com's clients are high-end restaurants.
"We usually get the very best restaurants that deliver
personalized hospitality," said Gorham.
OpenTable.com not only enables diners to book restaurant
reservations on line, but also enables restaurateurs to establish
profiles of regular customers and analyze data pertinent to their
business.
For example, an OpenTable user can analyze his sales volume on
Wednesday evenings in March.
The restaurateur can use that information when figuring the
number of wait staff required or how much of a certain food item
must be ordered.