Short's Travel Management Revenue and Competitors

Short's Travel Management purchased group technology vendor Groople to help further automate the group booking process for its college sports and corporate customers, and extend its customer base into new collegiate athletic conferences. Searching for technology to help in "solving the needs of our sports clients" when booking airline reservations and more than five hotel rooms at once, and in automating the request for proposals process, Short's president and CEO David LeCompte said he began talking to Groople about a partnership last March or April. "What we're looking at is truly the time savings," he said. "We partnered, but then one thing led to another and then the opportunity came to acquire them" last November, LeCompte said. He declined to reveal the purchase price. According to Groople CEO Mike Stacy, the opportunity emerged as one of its investors "basically shut their doors. We tried to raise additional capital, but that was very difficult given the current economic situation. Stacy said he and remaining investors had negotiated "a deal to be acquired and that fell through" at the last minute. Because of their partnership, Stacy said he contacted LeCompte to discuss an acquisition. Founded in 2003 with about $5 million in seed funding, Groople from 2004 through 2007 secured an additional $15 million in venture capital from Vista Ventures, Flywheel Ventures, ArrowPath Venture Partners and others, according to press releases and published reports. As partners, Groople and Short's last year began working on technology to help a corporate client track and better manage its hotel group spend, as well as direct connections to hotel chains for booking up to 50 rooms. "We're the first company to be able to book up to 50 rooms with a direct connect with Wyndham and we're also negotiating with another major company to bring that technology to other chains," LeCompte told The Beat. LeCompte said he expects to provide a beta version of his company's new corporate meeting tracking tool to a "current customer in April, but by this summer have a more full-fledged product that we'll introduce to other corporations. It will allow the person without any meeting planner skills to look for properties with meeting rooms and secure meeting and hotel rooms all in one seamless transaction." As part of this new tool, Short's will integrate meeting registration tools with the RFP, booking and tracking modules, LeCompte said. Short's Travel since 2003 has served as the official travel provider for the National Collegiate Athletic Association and manages all travel for association events, including the annual "March Madness" basketball tournament and other championships for more than 20 sports. The challenge with all the hotel bookings, LeCompte explained, is the manual process. "The hotel side really bogged us down," he said. "We're utilizing the tool to save time." While Groople targets 13 different types of groups, Stacy said college sports and corporate are the two markets it has most deeply penetrated. It is the official online group hotel reservation agency for the Atlantic 10, Big West Conference, Eastern College Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Athletic Conference. The sports market, Stacy said, is really where "corporate travel was 10 to 15 years ago. It's really neglected in terms of any technology" to manage the booking and tracking. "We really have some innovative tools that we're going to use to bring a lot more automation and cost savings to this market." In addition to direct connections to book up to 50 rooms automatically in a single transaction, Stacy said Groople developed other interfaces capable of booking up to 25 rooms. He said they are not using Pegasus. "We've investigated all types of opportunities, but are really looking to decrease our supplier costs" and increase booking efficiencies for buyers. Groople provides group hotel booking engine technology that connects to both hotel chains and the global distribution systems for inventory, an automated RFP process and tools to help planners manage bookings, rooms and schedules. It also offers a community called Groopvine that allows social or other groups to "plan, collaborate and share ideas and information before, during and after a group trip via wikis, photos, videos, forums, etc." Co-headquartered in Waterloo, Iowa, and Overland Park, Kan., Short's Travel reported more than $128 million in 2007 gross revenue, according to the Kansas City Star Business Weekly. It also reported that about 75 percent of its business is corporate, 23 percent group and 2 percent leisure. In 2008, LeCompte said, "about 45 percent of our business was corporate and another 55 percent is the meetings side. In December, our business was just down 2 percent and November just down 3 percent, because of our diversification. With the decline, I've got a lot of peers down 10 percent to 15 percent," he noted. "With the acquisition, we will be able to provide customers with an automated booking tool, backed by our own advanced technology features and high level of personalized customer service," according to LeCompte's prepared remarks. "Short's Travel moves 250,000 fans and athletes each year and coordinates logistics for over 20,000 meeting attendees. Our technology will make booking travel even easier and more cost-effective for both travelers and our hotel supplier partners," added Stacy. Groople will continue to operate under that brand, headquartered outside Denver with Stacy as CEO. LeCompte said Short's added seven Groople employees to its headcount. "We knew what we were good at: the technology," Stacy said. "But we didn't have the capital structure to build out the infrastructure. It has to be part of the infrastructure to deliver great customer service."