ABC Launches Hotel Booking Engine for Agents

ABC Global Travel Services has introduced ezBook, a free online hotel-booking tool with about 200,000 hotels from around the world in its inventory.

It gives agents a choice of rates: GDS rates, net, prepaid and online travel agency rates. Agents can build in their own markup or service fee.

Users can search by price, hotel name, star rating, amenity, geography and landmark. If a city is sold out due to a special event such as the Super Bowl, ezBook can show agents hotel availability in adjacent cities.

The GDS rates include the ABC Premier Hotel Program, the Premier Privileges luxury hotel program and ABC ezXtras, which include amenities such as free upgrades and free Wi-Fi.

ABC Global is targeting agents who don’t use GDSs with the tool.

When agents book a hotel in ezBook, they receive an emailed confirmation so they can incorporate it into a passenger’s itinerary.

Agents can see the same rates their clients are seeing on an online agency, said Cynthia Kropp, executive vice president of marketing and business development. ABC collects commissions for the hotels and pays those commissions to travel agents twice a month.

EzBook has reporting features that agents can export into a CSV file.

Agents can also enter information about their clients in order to prepopulate booking files.

EzBook is capable of booking up to eight rooms at a time.

ABC Global Travel is more than 30 years old and books more than 6 million room nights annually. It works with consortia and groups such as OSSN and NACTA.

http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Travel-Agent-Issues/ABC-launches-hotel-booking-engine-for-agents/