Travelport has reached a global agreement with hotel giant Marriott International. The five-year agreement secures access to Marriott International's wide variety of content, inventory, and brands for all Travelport-connected users worldwide including corporate customers and retail online agencies booking through the Galileo and Worldspan systems. The agreement includes an upgrade to direct connect interface via Travelport XML Pro and Complete Pricing Plus for enhanced shopping and pricing capabilities.
Marriott International operates and franchises more than 3,400 lodging properties in 70 countries and territories under the Marriott Hotels & Resorts, The Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott Hotels, the Autograph Collection, Renaissance Hotels, Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn & Suites, TownePlace Suites, SpringHill Suites brand names.
As part of the agreement, Marriott has also committed to upgrading its current interface to Galileo and Worldspan to Travelport's XML Pro Direct Connect interface including enhancements to the shopping and pricing capabilities. Significantly for Marriott, the hotel company will be in a position to reduce its distribution costs as a result of supporting a single connection to both GDS platforms.
"Marriott's upgrade to Travelport XML Pro will give travel agents better visibility to Marriott's over 15 brands worldwide, and from an enterprise perspective, will make future changes to the GDS easier, increasing our ability to deliver future functionality enhancements to the marketplace, faster," said Larraine Voll Morris, vice president of e-Distribution for Marriott International.
An industry first, the Complete Pricing Plus program gives travel agents access to all the normal rates and rules as well as additional detailed pricing information on optional room extras. This streamlines the booking process, especially for leisure bookings, and provides a consistent approach with the way travel agencies price hotel stays. In turn this saves time for hoteliers, agents and travelers by returning more detailed information regarding hotel rates and room features, Travelport says.
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