ABC Connection
The Economics of Digital Marketing for Hospitality

Technology’s unbridled leap across industries is supporting new models of consumer behavior bend on deriving maximum value out of every proposition—Travel and Hospitality arena is no exception.The demand for complex individually tailored information from corporate travel and meetings buyers is placing huge demands on Travel Management Companies (TMCs), Hotel Booking Agencies (HBAs) and Event and Incentive Travel companies.

In today’s market, an intimate understanding of the procurement process, from RFP to fulfilling a booking request either direct or via an intermediary, is crucial. ABC Connection, headquartered in Berkshire, U.K. works with the agency community, powering their corporate procurement and bookings through an integrated series of unique travel industry solutions.“Our purpose is to create certain economic value for our customers. We can provide data and powerful functionality that enable agencies to add value to their clients, such as images, 360 degree views and details, worldwide,” says Martin Coleman, Chairman, ABC Connection. ABC Connection has data of over 421,000 properties globally alongside 3.5M images which are validated every 30 days for information accuracy.

The vast majority of non-airline income for TMCs, HBAs and tour operators is generated via bookings of corporate and leisure accommodation. Agencies have to send out complex accommodation tenders to the shortlisted hotels, lodges, inns and apartments to ensure that they avail most competitive pricing and the required levels of facilities and services, adhering to contracts. ABC Connection’s three inter-related products comprising of the Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Meetings and the Commission Manager provide a low cost, high quality technology to all providers spanning the travel spectrum. The RFP tool works globally to deliver an enterprise solution that matches the individual commercial needs and technology requirements of many thousands of organizations, dramatically lowering the time investment required to manage the corporate hotel RFP process.

The Request for Meetings product increases market visibility and reaches more suppliers while simplifying the meetings booking process and reducing administration costs for complex events as well as for regular meetings.

ABC Connection has data of over 421,000 properties globally alongside 3.5M images which are validated every 90 days for information accuracy

Using specific location and meeting facilities criteria the product filters the search results to ensure the best venue selection. Commission manager consolidates and expedites commissions quickly and accurately. It can interface with any accounting package to reduce finance and administration costs towards improving the commission management process.

From the outset, ABC Connection solution stack has been based on LAMP technology (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) which is suitable for building high-availability heavy-duty dynamic web sites that are capable of serving tens of thousands of requests simultaneously.

The Company’s customer base covers all intermediary providers of meetings, events and accommodation that reach recognized hotel chains and over 270,000 independently-owned properties worldwide. For instance when the Yorkshire-based Redfern Travel decided to carry out a detailed review of their Crown Hotel RFP Programme, ABC Connection worked with them and their client to scope the RFP content and create the 3,987 hotel distribution list in less than three weeks. “It’s all about being smarter with requirements. We’ve concluded that ABC Connection is the only tool we can rely on to deliver this type of high quality RFP to our clients,” says Kate Wimpeney, Director of Supplier Relations, Redfern Travel.

For the onward journey, the company is planning on the continued development of the product to support in the local language alongside English as a country by country option and develop emerging markets. “Our aim is to continue ABC Connection as ‘the bible’ for all those communicating with the global hotel and venue industry,” says Coleman.