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GetThere First To Make Online Meeting Planning a Standard Feature In Corporate Online Booking Solution

Builds in Solution For Planning Corporate Meetings and Links to Large Event Planning Technology from seeUthere and StarCite

Hotel Booking SOUTHLAKE, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2004-- Recognizing the trends discussed in a new National Business Travel Association white paper, GetThere(R) today announced that it is making online meeting planning a standard feature of its industry-leading corporate online travel solution. GetThere also announced that it has signed agreements and is already integrating with solutions from seeUthere Technologies and StarCite to enable companies to book travel on GetThere for larger events planned through those offerings.
"The NBTA committee pointed to a clear need for Strategic Meetings Management, which focuses on aligning corporate travel and meeting planning to gain much more efficiency for both," said Kari Kesler, National Business Travel Association Groups & Meetings Committee. "Making meeting planning a standard element of online travel demonstrates GetThere's leadership in helping companies capitalize on this important new cost reduction opportunity immediately."

8mong many firsts for the group market, the new technology platform enables consumers to do something that other sites haven k allowed to book travel and accommodations for more than five rooms in a single online session. Featuring more than 56, 000 hotels, including 7, time group rates, Groople is primed to become the industry largest automated solution for unmanaged group leisure travel, a market estimated at $18 billion to $24 billion. Under its hosted inventory and commission models, Groople generates group bookings niche by niche for hotels and plans to add air, car, cruise, bus and rail later this year.

Travel Agency In corporations, there are two distinct types of meetings -- 1) those that require the services and expertise of a professional meeting planner, and 2) those that are more 'ad hoc', or informal, in nature and are planned by administrative assistants or non-professional meeting planners and represent 80 percent of a company's meeting spend, according to data released by PhoCusWright. While each type of meeting has unique technological needs, the common denominator is that companies are looking to give planners and attendees self-service tools that result in greater satisfaction and lower costs for the company.

Groople (www.groople.com), the leader in group travel planning, has partnered with Go10000, a travel focused development and hosting firm, to bring to market a new group collaboration site for the travel space. GroopVine will provide the solution to the complex communication and booking problems group travel planning can create. Enhancing the online travel space by combining the key elements of social networking such as invitations, forums, messaging, photos and video posting, with the best in online travel booking, GroopVine is the only place for group travelers to shop, plan and book together online.

Cheap Hotel "In working with the world's leading companies and this NBTA committee, it became very clear that one of the next frontiers in self-service and cost savings in corporations is automation of meeting planning and booking the travel to those meetings online," said Mike Malinchok, director of meeting planning solutions at GetThere. "We are making online planning and attendee travel a standard feature of the GetThere booking system for what is considered to be the majority of a corporation's meetings -- the smaller, ad hoc events planned by non-professional meeting arrangers."

Groople, the leading online group travel planning and booking site, announces the launch of an exciting travel and social networking tool, offering an integrated solution for the challenges of planning and booking group travel. GroopVine will allow users to create their own personalized trip page to plan, create, share, shop and buy travel with their entire group's input every step of the way. Providing helpful tools from event schedules and suggested itineraries to RSS feeds and online surveys, GroopVine makes group travel planning fun, collaborative and easy.

Flight Booking "Additionally, we are integrating with two of the leading solutions for professional meeting planners, seeUthere and StarCite, to ensure travel to meetings planned in either of those tools can be easily booked through our online booking system, which is the most widely used in Fortune 500 companies," added Malinchok.

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Travel Agent Standard Features for Planning Ad Hoc Meetings

Groople In the News Groople Selected by Bizbash as Provider for Group Travel Bookings June 1, BiZBash, the preeminent resource for the event planning industry, today announces a partnership with Groople.com, making Groople the exclusive online group travel partner for BiZBash's thousands of event professionals. BiZBash users now have Groople's group travel tools, with the unique ability to research and make group travel arrangements online. While most travel booking sites don't allow for group reservations at all, through BiZBash, hotel bookings for 5 rooms or hundreds of rooms are now simple to book and include special group rates. With an initial offering of hotels, the service will expand to offer airfare, cruise, car and rail bookings online. free number ( 4316) is available for arranging air, cruise, car and rail, as well as more complicated hotel requests.

Hotel Chicago To address the large volume of ad hoc meetings, GetThere is integrating tools designed for the non-professional meeting planner, and directing its future development to making those tools even more simple-to-use, requiring little to no training. The functionality will be included, and the only cost is a small premium on a group-related travel booking through the GetThere tool -- a process similar to, but at a much lower cost than the way group travel bookings are made over the phone today.

Online Booking SeeUthere and StarCite Integration to Help the Professional Meeting Planner

Travel Health Insurance In its white paper, NBTA made a clear distinction between the needs of the professional planner and those employees planning ad hoc meetings. The document points to distinct technology and process requirements that a travel manager needs to embrace to gain the support of the professional planners for a Strategic Meetings Management Program.

Hotel Reservation GetThere has responded to this by forging alliances with StarCite and seeUthere, allowing for greater flexibility in choosing the meeting planning tool(s) that best fit the needs of the company as well as the needs and preferences of the professional meeting planners -- while still driving travelers into GetThere's online travel environment. The integration is expected to be complete in the third quarter of 2004.

London Hotel Booking About GetThere

Discount Travel GetThere is the world's leading online corporate travel reservation technology, and is one of the key solutions offered to the corporate marketplace by Sabre Holdings. GetThere enables global corporations and government agencies to provide a convenient way for employees to book travel and plan meetings while significantly reducing costs. GetThere's advanced technology works with all major global distribution systems (GDS) and all travel management companies. More than 3,000 corporations, including 65 percent share of the Fortune 200, use GetThere. More information is available at www.getthere.com.

Orlando Hotel Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE:TSG) is a world leader in travel commerce, retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at http://www.sabre-holdings.com.

Booking Agency Contacts

International Travel Medical
GetThere
Media Contact:
Dan Toporek, 415-932-1163
dtoporek@GetThere.com
or
Vollmer Public Relations, Dallas
Mary Kate Smither, 972-488-4790
marykate@vollmerpr.com
or
Chintan Talati, 972-488-4790
chintan@vollmerpr.com

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