SERKO Online Clinches Leading Corporate Travel Technology Award

Australasian online booking leader SERKO Online, has been named 2010 Technology Services Provider of the Year in the prestigious BTTB Travel Management Awards held last week in Sydney. The award, won for the second time by SERKO, recognises travel technology providers who deliver exceptional service for their customers.

Buyer readers of Business Travel Monthly were asked to nominate suppliers who had gone "above and beyond" their expectations, and SERKO was selected on the basis of the glowing endorsements of its customers - both corporate travel managers and corporate travel agencies.

Michael Thorburn, SERKO GM Sales & Marketing, says winning once - against both Australian and international competitors - was an achievement. "Winning a second time is a huge honour and a tribute to our development and product teams, and our support staff at SERKO," he says. "We pride ourselves on delivery of leading-edge technology to our partners - both corporates and travel management companies (TMCs), and we appreciate all the positive reaction and the efforts of those who nominated us."

SERKO Online was a popular participant in the recent BTTB Australia conference which saw more than 450 of Australasia's key business travel professionals assemble in Sydney. "One of the highlights for us - and for our customers - was our demonstration of our new traveller tracking application, Employee Locator™. "During the BTTB Mobile Technology Shootout, we simulated a disaster, defined a "hot zone" around the conference venue and tracked one of our team as he left the auditorium, crossed the carpark and walked around the block," Thorburn explains. "The audience was able to watch him in real time as we tracked his mobile."

According to Thorburn, the technology can be deployed worldwide, and travel managers in Sydney or Auckland can track and monitor their travellers anywhere in the world, zooming in to street view to see exactly where they are. The system can also flag the nearest hospital or other landmarks. "While some tools may be able to tell you roughly where your travellers are because they track itineraries, our technology can pinpoint the traveller's mobile and tell where they really are - rather than where they are supposed to be," he adds.

The application is part of SERKO's Safe Traveller(tm) suite. It uses a mobile phone to pinpoint travellers using either the trigonometry of cell towers or GPS, depending on the capabilities of the mobile device. Other parts of the suite include:

Employee Flight Monitor™

This provides the ability to restrict the number of employees travelling together on any given flight number, mitigating against key staff being involved in high-risk and potentially life-threatening situations at the same time.

Hot Spot Alert™

This tool alerts travel bookers and travellers of known high-risk areas during the booking process. Hot spots are configured by country and city with a nominated risk radius, which is displayed to travel bookers if they choose to make bookings to any of those locations.

Thorburn says the Safe Traveller(tm) tools are indispensable in the heightened Duty of Care environment, as witnessed by the recent European flight bans and the chaos among travellers stranded during their trips. These enhancements represent a further evolution of SERKO's array of online booking tools which were among the first in the region to offer carbon credit reporting, one-way faring and unused e-ticket tracking.

Last week's win was part of a triple victory for SERKO, with one of its travel partners, corporate agency Voyager Travel, named as "Travel Management Services Supplier of the Year". SERKO is also proud that one of its end-users, Pacific Brands, took out the award for the Travel Programme of the Year - an honour which recognises its policy, integration, innovation and - importantly, its use of technology. "We are happy to see a SERKO user recognised by the judges for its excellent travel programme, implementation, online adoption and compliance - all helped by our tools," says Thorburn. 

Wednesday, 12 May 2010, webmaster