Computer travel planning system

A computer based system for processing travel requests directed to a specific venue from individual members of a sponsored group. The system comprises a data base containing a venue file including information regarding the specific venue, a group member file for each individual member of the group, a travel policy file containing information on preselected vendors of various travel services, and a city code file containing codes corresponding to a plurality of city airport locations. Data is entered and information displayed to an individual group member making a travel request via a terminal, such as a personal computer. A central processing unit is in communication with the data base and with a plurality of airline CRS systems. The CPU is programmed to select an individual group member itinerary for the specific venue which includes specific airline flights, and if necessary, specific hotel accommodations and specific rental car services.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates generally to the field of computerized travel 
planning and booking systems and, more particularly to such a system for 
processing travel requests directed to a specific travel venue from 
individual members of a sponsored group. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELEVANT PRIOR ART 
Presently, most business travel arrangements are handled via telephone 
connection to either a travel agency, an in-house travel department, or 
directly with a travel supplier such as an airline. For the individual 
business traveler, this can be a very time consuming and cumbersome 
process, and may require a number of telephone call-backs and 
verifications. Hence, attempts have been made to streamline this process. 
For example, the individual airlines have designed CRS (computerized 
reservation) systems which provide information on the availability on 
commercial airline flights in response to requests submitted from data 
terminals generally located in the travel agent's offices. By accessing 
the CRS systems, the travel agents may obtain information on the 
availability of space and book reservations on commercial airlines. 
Systems have been designed that allow the business traveler to interact 
directly with the CRS by using a personal computer. Typically, these prior 
art systems provide the business traveler with information concerning 
various flights, fares and rules surrounding a particular travel venue. 
However, since the traveler is left to sort through all of this 
information to make a cost effective decision, these prior art systems 
have proven to be more time consuming than transacting the business over 
the telephone. These prior art personal computer systems can take up to 20 
minutes to use. 
Some other attempts have been made to streamline the decision making 
process in determining business travel itineraries. For example, U.S. Pat. 
No. 4,862,357 discloses a computer reservation system including a remote 
data base containing flight schedule, fare and fare limitation information 
which is accessed from a local computer terminal. The information 
retrieved is sorted and scored in accordance with a predetermined travel 
policy stored in the local computer memory and as applied to a proposed 
travel itinerary. A ranked list of applicable flights is merged into a 
single display. 
U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,953 discloses a travel planner system which 
automatically constructs itineraries with available seats for a traveler's 
trip request. The selected itinerary conforms to a pre-stored file of 
reasonableness standards. The system finds itinerary-with-fare 
combinations that are acceptable in terms of costs and convenience to the 
traveler and accord with the prestored reasonableness standards. The 
system displays the selected itineraries by departure or arrival time. 
In many cases, the business traveler is a member of a group which is 
traveling to a specific venue. For example, the traveler may be attending 
a meeting, seminar or training program along with other individuals 
employed by the same corporation or other institution. In these cases, the 
sponsoring corporation or institution is generally expected to pick-up the 
costs of this business travel. However, many sponsoring organizations have 
little control over the specific travel itineraries selected by those 
attending the meeting. For example, the individual traveler may select one 
airline over another on the basis of a frequent flier membership with that 
airline, rather than making a cost effective decision. While businesses 
often have stated travel policies which require selection of the most cost 
effective itinerary, such travel policies prove difficult to enforce in a 
climate where each individual traveler is left to make his/her own 
arrangements. 
Clearly, there is a need for a computer based travel planning system which 
allows an individual business travel to efficiently and effectively book 
an itinerary for a specified venue, such as an upcoming meeting or 
seminar. There is also a need for such a system which allows such a 
traveler to book in itinerary only if it conforms with a preset travel 
policy prenegotiated by the sponsoring organization. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
Disclosed and claimed herein is a computer system by which an individual 
business traveler may book an itinerary, including airline flights, hotel 
reservations and, if necessary, ground transportation, for a specific 
venue in a process which takes only 30 to 40 seconds. Moreover, the 
itinerary so booked will automatically be in conformity with the fares 
prenegotiated by the sponsoring organization with various vendors. To 
accomplish this, the present invention provides a data base which contains 
a number of separate data files. One file, called a venue file, contains 
information about a specific venue for which a number of individual 
travelers from the same sponsoring organization are making travel 
arrangements. The venue file includes information such as the date on 
which the meeting or event begins, the date on which it ends, the city 
location of the meeting, and the address location of the meeting within 
the city. Obviously, in cases where the sponsoring organization is 
sponsoring travel to a number of venues, a separate venue file may be 
provided for each such venue. 
The data base further includes a travel policy file which contains 
information on preselected airline carriers, preselected room 
accommodation providers, and preselected ground transportation providers. 
Normally, these vendors have been selected via negotiation with the 
sponsoring organization. Since the sponsoring organization can guarantee a 
certain number of travelers to the particular venue, it can usually 
negotiate group discounts on the airline flights, hotel rooms and car 
rental services. By negotiating with a plurality of vendors of each of 
these services, the group sponsor can obtain the most cost effective 
itinerary for that particular venue in terms of a specific airline 
carrier, hotel, and car rental company. The selections so made or all 
contained in the travel policy data file. 
The data base of the present system further includes a city code data file 
which contains codes corresponding to a plurality of city airport 
locations. This file makes it possible for the system to interface between 
the individual travel requests entered into the system (which are 
expressed in terms of departure city and destination city) and the various 
airline CRS systems (wherein various airports are expressed in 
internationally recognized codes). 
A group member data file is provided for each individual member of the 
sponsoring organization. The group member file contains personal 
preference information known about that group member, such as his/her 
preferences on airline seating, non-smoking arrangements, frequent flier 
membership, etc. The group member files may be included in the data base 
of the system of the present invention, or the system may access the 
various passenger files which presently exist in the several airline CRS 
systems. 
A ticketing file may be provided which contains reservations that must be 
ticketed in the future. The system will check the ticket file on a daily 
basis, and produce and route tickets and/or itinerary notices to the 
proper destination. 
A user communicates with the system of the present invention via a 
terminal, including means for entry of data corresponding to a particular 
group member's individual travel requests for a specific venue. The 
terminal may be provided as part of the present system, or the system may 
alternatively operate on existing equipment. Typically, the terminal may 
be a personal computer which is in communication with the system of the 
present invention via a local area network, a wide area network, or the 
sponsoring organization's own information network. The display unit of the 
personal computer allows the user to both see and verify the information 
on his/her individual travel request that has been entered, and also to 
view the individual travel itinerary constructed for him/her. 
The system of the present invention also includes a central processing unit 
which is in communication with the data base and with the plurality of 
airline computerized reservation systems. The central processing unit is 
responsive to the individual travel request data entered on the terminal, 
and is programmed to emulate the decision making process of the typical 
corporate travel arranger. It retrieves information from the temporary 
individual travel request file, the specific venue file, the travel policy 
file including the prenegotiated vendors, and the group member file for 
the individual making the travel requests and, by accessing the flight 
schedules and other information contained in the various airline CRS 
systems, selects the optimum itinerary for that individual group member. 
The airline, hotel and group transportation selections are then booked and 
displayed on the user terminal. Thus, rather than leaving it to the 
individual traveler, travel agent, or corporate travel arranger to process 
the myriad of data and arrive at the most cost effective itinerary, the 
system automates that step of the process, and operates in a fraction of 
the time previously required to book a business reservation. Furthermore, 
it eliminates the possibility that the individual group member will 
circumvent the preferred travel vendors, thus significantly lowering the 
cost of corporate travel.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Throughout the following detailed description, like reference numerals are 
used to refer to the same element of the invention shown in multiple 
figures thereof. Referring now to the drawings, and in particular to FIG. 
1, there is shown a computer based travel planning system 10 of the 
present invention which includes a data base 12 containing at least one 
venue file 14, a travel policy file 16, and a city decode file 18. The 
venue file 14 includes information regarding a particular travel venue for 
which a group of travelers sponsored by a particular organization will 
need travel arrangements. Typically, the venue will be a meeting, a 
seminar, a convention, a training program, etc. which a group of members 
of the sponsoring organization, such as a corporation, educational 
institution, non-profit foundation, etc., will be attending, with the 
sponsoring organization paying for the travel expenses incurred by the 
group members. However, the venue could be of another form, such as a 
subsidiary location or field location of a corporation, to and from which 
a significant number of corporate employees regularly travel. Since the 
cost effectiveness of the system of the present invention is realized 
largely through savings realized by negotiating group discounts with 
preselected vendors of airline, hotel and rental car services, any 
situation where enough members of the sponsoring organization must make 
travel arrangements to the same location may be denominated a venue for 
purposes of this invention. A venue file 14 for each such venue is located 
in the data base 12. 
The travel policy file 16 includes information regarding the preselected 
vendors negotiated by the sponsoring organization. Typically, 
representative from the sponsoring organization will negotiate with 
various airline carriers, hotels, and rental car companies for group 
travel discounts for a specific venue. Those vendors making the lowest 
bids on these services will then be denominated preselected vendors, and 
will be included in the travel policy file 16. Thus, if an upcoming 
meeting is to be held in Rockefeller Center in New York City, beginning on 
September the 13th and ending on September the 16th, the travel policy 
file 16 will include one or more preselected airline carriers, covering 
travel from different parts of the country, to New York City on those 
dates. One or more hotel vendors will be designated as preselected, as 
will one or more car rental companies, if ground transportation is deemed 
necessary. 
The city decode file 18 simply includes a list of internationally 
recognized codes for airports located in cities throughout the United 
States. The purpose of city decode file 18 is to permit departure and 
destination city information entered on travel request screen 71, (see 
FIG. 4) to be translated into the city codes recognized by the various 
airline CRS systems 28. 
Individual group member files 20 are also provided which, in the embodiment 
shown in FIG. 1, are located within the data bases 28 of the individual 
airline CRS systems. However, it is contemplated that passenger files 20 
could also be resident in data base 12. 
A terminal 22 permits the individual group member to enter his/her travel 
requests on a data entry means, such as keyboard 24, and also to view 
travel information provided by the system of the present invention via a 
display means such as screen 26. Terminal 22 may be a dedicated terminal 
or it may be existing equipment. Since terminal 22 includes both data 
entry means and display means, the individual group member can 
interactively interrogate the system. In one embodiment of the present 
invention, the terminal 22 comprises a personal computer with a modem and 
suitable communications software so that the individual group member may 
access the system 10 via telephone lines, either through a local area 
network 30, or, alternatively, through a wide area network 32 or an 
information network provided by the sponsoring organization. In this 
embodiment, the system may further include suitable software for the 
personal computer which initially, and independently of accessing the 
system 10 itself, can display a format screen 71, such as that illustrated 
in FIG. 4, with blanks to permit entry of various travel data, as will be 
explained subsequently in greater detail, and to store the data inputted 
in a temporary file which can be sent to the central system. However, in 
an alternative embodiment, these functions can also be performed by the 
central system 10, itself. The system 10 further includes a central 
processing unit 26 which is in communication with the data base 12, and is 
also in communication with a plurality of airline computerized reservation 
systems 78, such as the already existing Sabre, Apollo and Worldspan 
systems. The central processing unit 32 is responsive to the individual 
travel requests data entered on terminal 22 and is programmed to select an 
individual group member itinerary for a specific venue in response to an 
individual travel request from a group member. The individual group member 
itinerary includes, at a minimum, specific airline flights, and may also 
include specific hotel accommodations and specific ground transportation 
services. The central processing unit is further programmed to display the 
selected flights, hotel accommodations and ground transportation services 
to the individual group member via the display means of the terminal 22. 
Since the central processing unit is in communication with the various 
airline CRS systems, it also performs the function of booking the selected 
itinerary. 
In a particularly preferred embodiment of the system of the present 
invention, the central processing unit is further programmed to make a 
price comparison between the negotiated fares available from the 
preselected vendors and any other airline flight for the same venue 
available from the airline CRS systems 28. In this embodiment, the system 
10 initially selects an itinerary based on the negotiated fares from the 
preselected vendors contained in the travel policy file 18. An itinerary 
is then booked which relies on the preselected vendors. The system 10 then 
performs a price check by further interrogating the airline CRS systems 28 
to discover whether there are any lower published fares available for the 
same venue. If lower fares are discovered, the system 10 cancels the 
original bookings and rebooks the itinerary by using the lower published 
fares. 
In either embodiment, once a firm booking is made, a ticketing and delivery 
date is established. Actual printing and delivery of the ticket may be 
performed by the system of the present invention by incorporating into it 
a dedicated printer 29. However, these functions may be performed 
externally of the system. 
As shown in FIG. 3, the individual group member initiates the process by 
filling out a screen 71 which will format an electronic travel request. 
The screen 71 includes an employee identification code window 72, an 
individual venue or meeting code window 73, departure and destination city 
windows 74, 77, departure and return date and time windows 75, 76, 78, 79, 
a hotel request window 80, a car rental request window 81, special request 
windows 82, 83, a ticket delivery date window 84 and a verification window 
85. Additional pop-up menus (not illustrated) are available to assist the 
user with decoding city and airport names, and selecting preferred hotel 
and car vendors. When the user confirms that the information entered is 
correct via window 85, the travel request is formatted in a delimited file 
and sent to the central system 10. 
FIGS. 2a-2d are flow charts which show the step by step operation of the 
system of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2a, the initial travel 
request data is received in step 41 and is checked for a valid venue code 
in step 42. If an invalid venue code is encountered, an error message is 
formatted in step 43 and returned to the individual group member. If a 
valid venue code is encountered, the venue criteria with respect to dates, 
place, etc. is retrieved from the venue file 14 in step 44. To assist with 
the booking process, passenger information is retrieved from the group 
member file 20 in step 45, and information such as form of payment, or 
special service requests are moved into a shell reservation created on the 
airline CRS 28. Using the information retrieved from the venue file 14 and 
the group member file 20, the airline, hotel and ground transportation 
vendors are selected in step 46. 
An airline availability request is formatted based upon the time and date 
of travel requested (the request can be based upon departure or arrival 
time) and the airline CRS 28 is interrogated in step 47. Once a response 
is received from the CRS 28, the response is read and the appropriate 
flights are selected. If the selected flights are available, the system 
moves to block 48, and a booking request is formatted and sent to the CRS 
28 in step 49. If the flights are not available, the system 10 will 
continue to interrogate an airline CRS 28 until an available flight is 
located in step 48a. If available flights cannot be located an error 
message is formatted in step 50 and returned to the originator. 
Once appropriate flights have been selected, a determination is made 
whether a hotel is required in step 51. If a hotel is not required, the 
hotel selection module shown in FIG. 2b is bypassed. If one is required, a 
hotel availability request is formatted in step 52 and sent to the CRS 28. 
Once a response is received from the CRS 28, it is read, and if the hotel 
is available, as block 53 indicates, a booking request is formatted in 
step 55 and sent to the CRS 28. If the hotel is not available, a reject 
message is formatted in step 54, and program control passes to the car 
booking module. 
The car booking module is illustrated in FIG. 2c. If a car is required, as 
is indicated by block 56, a car availability request is formatted in step 
57 and sent to the CRS 28. Once a response is received from the CRS 28, it 
is read, and if the car is available, as is indicated in block 58, a 
booking request is formatted and sent to the CRS 28 in step 60. If the car 
is not available, a reject message is formatted in step 59, and program 
control passes to the pricing module shown in FIG. 2d. 
The travel policy file 18 and the various CRS 28 tariff displays are 
interrogated for applicable fares for the airline itinerary in step 61. 
If, in step 62, a published fare is located on a CRS 28 which is lower 
than the negotiated fare from the travel policy file 18, a cancel and 
rebook message is formatted and sent to the CRS 28 in step 63 for the 
applicable booking code for the fare. Once the confirmation response is 
received from the CRS 28, an auto pricing request is formatted and sent to 
the CRS 28 in step 64. If, on the other hand, a lower published fare is 
not located, a cancel and rebook message is formatted and sent to the CRS 
28 for the applicable prenegotiated booking code in step 65. Once the 
confirmation response is received, a manual pricing record request is 
formatted and sent to the CRS 28 in step 66. 
Based upon the travel request and the ticketing date for the fare, a 
ticketing and delivery date is established in step 67. A request is 
formatted for the CRS 28 to store the delivery information in the 
reservation. A seat assignment request is formatted and sent to the CRS in 
step 68. 
A response message, such as is illustrated in FIG. 4, is formatted in step 
69 to be returned to the individual group member traveler. The response 
message includes flight information, hotel information, car information, 
seat assignments and delivery information. 
FIG. 2e illustrates the ticketing module of the present invention. If a 
ticket is required immediately (step 90), control passes to block 91 which 
routes a print ticket message to specially designated printer 29, 
generally located on the premises of the sponsoring organization. The 
print message enables printer 29 to print an airline ticket and an 
invoice/itinerary. If an immediate ticket is not required, control passes 
to block 92 which sends a confirmation message to the ticketing file 19. 
Ticketing file 19 holes the message until the day of ticketing. The CPU 32 
is programmed to check ticketing file 19 daily for such messages. 
The travel planning system of the present invention has been illustrated 
with reference to various embodiments and exemplifications thereof. By 
using the teachings of the present invention, doubtless one skilled in the 
art may be able to design other versions of the system which differ from 
those illustrated. However, the present invention is not intended to be 
limited by the embodiments and exemplifications illustrated and described. 
Rather, it is the claims appended thereto and all equivalents thereof 
which define the scope of the present invention.