The new strategic partnership, announced to the press by Emmanuel Ebray and John Baird Smith on 25 September, has already gone live on a global scale. The 35,000 or so corporate customers of the HRS portal can now benefit from a centralised payment solution that integrates with the Global Payment product. At a time when hotels are the focus of attention for travel managers, who see them as a crucial source of savings at a time when expenditure is being rationalised, the HRS-AirPlus alliance should help to improve the management of business travel. In practical terms, the travel manager can set the parameters for the services reimbursed by the company - breakfast, Wi-Fi, parking - and define for each business traveller the amount of the transaction and the period of validity. "We want to offer our customers the same hotel payment solutions as those available for airline tickets," says Tobias Ragge, Managing Director of HRS. "The integration of AirPlus payment solutions into Global Payment will enable corporate customers to benefit from greater visibility of their hotel spend and save time and money through automated processes," he adds.
