Customers of Booking.com’s business travel platform now have access to off-channel booking data capture capabilities from Traxo, the two companies have announced.
The partnership will open up Traxo’s email-based data parsing and reporting services to the nearly 600,000 small and midsize (SME) companies globally who are registered to use the online travel agency’s light-touch business travel management tools.
The partnership adds to Booking’s growing functionality for SME companies to gain visibility into business travel activities and deliver select managed travel services.
Booking took a minority stake in Serko in 2019 to deliver the Booking.com for Business platform, which is powered by Serko’s Zeno tool. CWT just last month joined the list of providers to add no-fee agent services to the mix.
With Traxo, which until now has targeted enterprise companies, Booking customers can now throw a net under transactions not made through the Booking.com for Business platform and improve visibility.
“Our clients value comprehensive visibility into their travel programme. Via this partnership… [they] will gain enhanced duty of care oversight, and travel data distribution tools, regardless of where bookings are made,” said Joshua Wood, director of Booking.com for Business, in a statement.
Traxo provides an email integration that detects travel-related information on incoming messaging. It parses that data behind the scenes and delivers it to the customer, in this case, via Booking’s Zeno-powered business travel dashboard.
“Basically, it boils down to two things,” Traxo CEO Andres Fabris told BTN about the value the partnership will deliver to Booking’s customers. “Full data visibility into any booking made - not limited to Booking.com. Then add portability to the data. We display it back to the owner through the Booking.com for Business dashboard and also send that downstream to a variety of endpoints.”
Booking has prioritised three areas to help serve its customers: duty of care, expense and value added tax (VAT) reclaim, said Fabris. But the companies are looking to add value by extending that list to a number of other business travel entities that would benefit the SME segment.