Groople group bookings

Link: Groople - Group Travel Made Easy - Group Hotels Search

Article: TW Crossroads: "ENVER -- A new firm here called Groople (as in groups of people) hopes to make the booking of leisure groups the next trendy niche among online agencies and build on GDS shortcomings in this arena to ease the group reservations process for traditional agencies...

CEO David Loy, formerly a managing director of Trip.com, noted that the GDSs neglected to develop technology to automate the booking process for the so-called Smerf (social, military, education, religious and fraternal) group market, estimated at between $18 billion and $24 billion.

A source at one GDS confirmed that when it comes to booking more than four rooms for leisure groups, GDSs routinely advise agents to phone hotels' group bookings departments, or revenue management systems kick in, making it difficult to obtain group rates.

Groople's main thrust will be selling to consumers through online agencies, supplier sites and Groople.com. It plans to spend $5 million on branding in the first quarter of 2005.

Groople.com features hotel inventory from third parties such as Hotels.com and also hosts rooms in its inventory management system. The firm's business currently operates on a commission basis, but Groople's business model calls for developing direct connects to hotel chains and developing a wholesale business.

Loy said the company has a partnership with Best Western and is negotiating relationships with other chains. It also is talking with Worldspan about an airline product. He said Sabre will play a role, although he declined to be specific.

Using the Groople product, consumers can book five or more rooms, and group leaders can manage the process.

Suppliers, according to Groople, can "dynamically change availability and price any time through a password-protected extranet."

A recent search on Groople .com for a group booking for a class reunion in Atlanta spit out accommodations options at numerous major hotels. Many, however, involved requesting a price quote from the hotel rather than automated bookings.

Loy noted that a lack of real-time rates is more of a business issue than a technology one because hotels want to control group bookings. Some 7,000 of the 56,000 properties in the system feature what the company calls "real-time group rates."

A company-staffed call center can handle complex bookings.

Loy said the firm spent two years and $3 million developing its software, which is built on a Microsoft.NET platform.

Groople plans to use an API [application program interface] model to power online agency and supplier sites on a co-branded or private-label basis, Loy said. "