Global

Carlson Wagonlit Travel releases more Powerful version of PowrPac

Enhanced Tool Combines Benchmarking with Interactive Analysis to

Optimize Cost and Value for Clients

VANCOUVER, B.C. May 2, 2005 - Carlson Wagonlit Travel today introduced an enhanced version of its PowrPac technology, version 1.5, a customizable benchmarking, travel modeling and interactive intelligence tool. PowrPac was developed by the CWT Solutions Group, the company‘s travel management consulting arm, and allows travel managers to optimize their travel spend and capture significant cost savings. PowrPac is a CWT tool that takes large amounts of data–booked travel, credit card and expense management data–and quickly synthesizes it into actionable program recommendations.

"The lion‘s share of a company‘s travel spend–more than 95 percent–i s on air, rail, hotel and car expenditures,“ said Jack O‘Neill, chief operating officer of CWT North America. "By capturing this data in PowrPac, we can provide recommendations to clients through an ongoing partnership, working together to drive savings. This intelligence helps clients make better decisions and allows them to optimize their travel investment.“

PowrPac captures the travel-spend data and through customized automation, delivers reports and recommendations as defined by the user, shifting the focus to continual program optimization. All facets of PowrPac are unique in that they are interactive and customizable, allowing a company to focus on the metrics that are most important to their travel spend goals, while charting a course to achieve them.

According to PowrPac lead architect Tom Ruesink, CWT clients find the reports to be intuitive and interactive, while the recommendations and collaboration with Solutions Group project managers provide added value. "PowrPac changes the focal point to ongoing dialogue and partnership, with the data serving as the conduit,“ stated Tom Ruesink, director of technology, CWT Solutions Group. “ This is not a cookie-cutter approach; rather, it‘s about a customized suite of recommendations based on individual client needs. In every single case, the deliverables are unique to the customer and their goals.“

PowrPac 1.0 ( Performance Optimization With Recommendations/ Program Analysis & Consulting) was introduced in 2004 to:

• Assess the impact of industry changes as they occur
• Provide critical decision support for supplier management
• Monitor and track purchasing behaviors such as use of advance purchase fares, non­preferred hotels and low-cost suppliers
• Analyze travel spend by key department
• Track traveler and metric compliance to preferred program and agency
• Translate traditional data and reporting into recommendations in order to provide corrective action between procurement cycles
   

PowrPac 1.5 has an enhanced user experience, including a smoother navigation and look and feel. It also has an improved archive storage system, additional reporting and benchmarking options, help functionality, and a high level of customization.

"The primary focus of PowrPac 1.5 is benchmarking, allowing clients to not only see how they compare with the CWT client base, but to also understand key behavior drivers behind the numbers," noted Steve Shook, vice president of the CWT Solutions Group. "PowrPac 1.5 offers quick-look benchmarking within its interface, so clients can simply enter an airline market or hotel city to see both their own statistics for that market and how they compare to their peers."

PowrPac is made up of a variety of reports and recommendations including:

• Summary of Recommendations: Monthly and quarterly executive recommendations for program cost savings, both air and hotel. These one-page summaries, created by the Solutions Group and used by travel managers, allow users to chart a course of action for the month/quarter and are the foundation for ongoing dialogue and priority setting.
• Executive Interactive Dashboard: An interactive dashboard of air and hotel key metrics and exceptions, which displays a company‘s travel program at a glance, with the ability to drill down for more detail as desired. The dashboard allows travel management and procurement teams to quickly and easily share information with C-level executives on one slide for easy comprehension. Metrics can be defined by the travel manager in categories such as advanced purchase, self-booked transactions, preferred hotel compliance and lowest logical airfare.
• Interactive Market Benchmarking: This interactive analysis allows clients to compare their air and hotel performance in top markets against their peers as a whole, or in terms of like spend and like industry, while illustrating for them the key behavior drivers behind the numbers and their performance.
• Hotel Analysis Suite: With this hotel optimization suite, clients can measure preferred hotel compliance, easily prepare for supplier meetings, track agency leakage, gain instant insight into a city or metro area, and identify extended stay opportunities, as just an example of the many detailed analyses available in this suite.
• Contract Performance Reports: Reports provide air contract monitoring, tailored specifically to each supplier contract goal, including contract highlights and change-in­service reports. One-page snapshot reports illustrate performance year-to-date, as well as the drivers behind the performance. These reports enable travel managers and procurement staff to effectively prepare for supplier negotiations and ongoing supplier management.
• Hot Markets: This analysis provides daily monitoring of carrier performance as of yesterday‘s ticketing, by month-to-date, quarter-to-date or year-to-date parameters. This monitoring allows users to track and move market share quickly, enabling clients to meet contract compliance goals with suppliers.
• Carrier Preferencing: Allows clients to easily preference their preferred carriers by market and departure airport for both travelers, in the self-booking tool, and travel agents, in the agent desktop.
• Market Detail (air) and Metro Detail (hotel): Detailed market data, integrated with third­party data, allowing clients to drill into behavioral opportunities for air and hotel bookings.
   

The PowrPac benchmarking, travel modeling and intelligence tool is available online, around the clock, for CWT Solutions Group clients. Deliverables and recommendations are updated continually and available to designated company officials such as travel managers, procurement specialists and department heads.

"The service we provide through PowrPac and the Solutions Group is unparalleled in the industry,“ stated O‘Neill."Our clients, who found significant value with PowrPac 1.0, asked for more and more functionality. We‘ve responded to these requests with PowrPac 1.5, which makes the tool even more powerful, interactive and effective for clients."

The CWT Solutions Group is the consulting division of CWT. The group secures savings on business travel costs through sourcing and program optimization on behalf of both CWT corporate travel agency clients, as well as other agencies‘ clients. The Solutions Group has dedicated consultants in every major region of the world with diverse, experienced backgrounds in travel management, consulting and information technology, ensuring expertise on the ground in each market. The CWT Solutions Group consults for seven of the top 20 companies on the Corporate Travel 100, as named by Business Travel News. Its client base represents $11 billion in annual air volume. This activity represents a fast growing part of CWT‘s business. The group‘s year-to-date revenues are up 100 percent over 2004.

About Carlson Wagonlit Travel

Carlson Wagonlit Travel is a world leader in business travel management partnering with large corporations, small-and medium-sized companies, and government institutions. CWT designs and implements superior travel management programs for clients based upon its recognized consulting expertise, strong purchasing power, technological prowess, and consistent delivery of high-quality service. CWT has operations in more than 140 countries and services 60 of the companies named to FORTUNE magazine's Global 100. Annual sales of $19 USD billion are generated under the Carlson Wagonlit Travel brand. The company is co-owned by Paris-based Accor group and Minneapolis­based Carlson Companies. For more information, visit www.carlsonwagonlit.com.

Media Contacts:
Laurie Alexander
Carlson Wagonlit Travel
763-212-2079
lalexander@carlsonwagonlit.com

Martha Constantinesco
Carlson Wagonlit Travel
+ 33 (0) 1 41 33 68 94
mconstantinesco@carlsonwagonlit.com

Jennifer McFadden
Weber Shandwick
952-346-6128
jmcfadden@webershandwick.com

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