Simon Tam Returns to Expedia Corporate Travel to Lead Product and Technology Innovation
Expedia Corporate Travel names Simon Tam senior vice president of product and technology
BELLEVUE, Wash., April 8, 2008 /PRNewswire/ — Expedia® Corporate Travel ensures its place at the forefront of innovation within the corporate travel industry by bringing Simon Tam on board as senior vice president of product and technology. As a founding member of the Expedia Corporate Travel team, Tam, who worked with the company until early 2006, played a key role in establishing it as the No. 1 full-service corporate travel agency and fifth largest travel management company.
“Simon is a true industry veteran and has been a major contributor to Expedia Corporate Travel from the beginning,” says Jean-Pierre Remy, president of Expedia Corporate Travel. “Since launching in 2002, the company has continued to grow at a rapid pace. With Simon as part of the team, we will continue transforming corporate travel while maintaining our leadership position in the industry.”
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to build upon the success of what we have started,” said Tam. “When I look at how far Expedia Corporate Travel has come in such a short time, I cannot help but be proud of the power of our technology and how it enables travel managers to drive, monitor and control their programs. Looking at the 40 percent average online adoption rate in the U.S. corporate travel industry, it’s obvious that not only are we leading a revolution by setting the bar at 88 percent across all traveler bookings, but we are pushing to advance self-service booking tools for travelers and travel management.”
In his new role Tam will lead the team responsible for product strategy, marketing, management and development, as well as technology direction worldwide. Expedia Corporate Travel’s product and technology group will focus its efforts in the following four distinct areas, which are highlighted by several new features announced today:
Expanding Global Footprint
Following its growing presence in Europe and recent entry into China, Expedia Corporate Travel will continue to extend its reach internationally and ensure a consistent, industry-leading technology platform across all regions. Tam will work to build on the company’s initial foray into the Asia-Pacific region and ensure that Expedia Corporate Travel continues to grow with its customers as their needs evolve. Customers will now have even more visibility into their global travel spend through enhancements to Expedia Corporate Travel’s proprietary global consolidated reporting platform. This platform provides on-demand access to global flight, rail, hotel, car and fee spend, making it easy for travel managers to access all of their data and increase efficiencies and savings.
Empowering Travel Managers with Actionable Information and Insight
The Expedia Corporate Travel platform has been expanded to give travel managers even more control and a deeper level of understanding of their programs through several business intelligence enhancements. New features include the addition of scheduled reports, allowing travel managers to customize and plan the delivery of key business data to promote on-time analysis, and a new “active traveler” report that allows travel managers to have a complete view of upcoming trips in a specific timeframe. DataMinder™ is another new tool available that provides travel managers the ability to set and trigger email notifications based on business metrics with the goal of aiding the real-time monitoring of program performance and maximizing the value from preferred supplier contracts.
Investing in Innovation
Tam will play a vital role in establishing a platform for traveler collaboration, continuing the company’s efforts to deliver user generated content to business travelers. While the corporate travel industry is only in the early stages of this evolution, Expedia Corporate Travel is uniquely positioned to offer these features through its flexible, proprietary platform and the availability of relevant travel content. By providing tools that will foster deeper connections and sharing information among business travelers, the next wave of business travel presents the opportunity to increase the ease and efficiency of the traveler experience. Additional enhancements also give travelers access to updated itineraries throughout an entire trip, reflecting all flight, hotel and car changes that they have made en-route.
Access to Broader Supply of Inventory
The company continues to make investments in supporting access to a broad range of content that is meaningful to business travelers. These include continued investments in its global air platform that will improve the quality of service for Expedia Corporate Travel customers. Companies will now have the option to allow their business travelers to reserve town cars and limousines while ensuring that they’re in accordance with company policy and reflected in spend reporting.
Tam first joined Expedia® in 1996 as a primary developer on the American Express/AXI project, which was Expedia’s first foray into corporate travel. Since then, he has been credited with launching Expedia’s first corporate online booking site, helping Expedia Corporate Travel grow to become a global travel management company.
Prior to re-joining Expedia Corporate Travel, Tam spent the past two years leveraging his business-to-business and e-commerce expertise in advisory and consulting roles with a number of Internet startups. He now returns to his roots to continue driving innovation in corporate travel.
About Expedia Corporate Travel
Expedia Corporate Travel is the No. 1 online corporate travel agency and fifth largest travel management company in the world. As part of Expedia, Inc., (NASDAQ: EXPE), the world’s leading online travel company, empowering business and leisure travelers with the tools and information they need to easily research, plan, book and experience travel, Expedia Corporate Travel brings together the best of technology and corporate support in a single- source solution that drives down costs. Business travelers have access to specialized tools, while companies can take advantage of rich management and reporting features.
Expedia, Expedia Corporate Travel and DataMinder are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners.
© 2008 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST# 2083922-50.
SOURCE: Expedia Corporate Travel
CONTACT: Jordan Rittenberry of Edelman, +1-312-233-1226,
jordan.rittenberry@edelman.com, for Expedia Corporate Travel </br/>
Web site: http://www.expediacorporate.com/