Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., is the first participant in Hotel Tax, Surcharge and Fee Disclosure from Worldspan. The Worldspan system will provide this exclusive new functionality for all Starwood properties.
                                 
"With Hotel Tax, Surcharge and Fee Disclosure, Worldspan subscribers can quickly determine the total room cost up front, including all applicable taxes and fees, without additional searches or phone calls to the hotel property," commented Vela McClam-Mitchell, vice president and general manager - Worldwide Travel Supplier Services for Worldspan. "For subscribers and hotel companies alike, the results are better customer service, fewer rate discrepancies, higher customer satisfaction, and increased productivity. We are very pleased that Starwood Hotels & Resorts, an industry leader, has chosen to participate first in this remarkable new product."
                                 
"Communicating clear, complete rate information to consumers is essential to maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction, and Worldspan's new Hotel Tax, Surcharge and Fee Disclosure technology will help us accomplish that goal," said Linda Kent, director, Global Agency Distribution for Starwood. "In addition, by further automating and simplifying the rate rules process, this valuable new enhancement allows Worldspan subscribers to book Starwood accommodations for their clients faster and with greater confidence than ever."

Worldspan Hotel Tax, Surcharge and Fee Disclosure functionality allows participating hotel companies to return, in a fixed field, all known taxes, fees and surcharges for display to the travel agent or e-commerce user in Hotel Source Rate Rule. New qualifiers have been created to identify how each fee is to be calculated, for example, per person, per night or per stay. New indicators identify whether the numerics in these fields are a monetary amount or a percentage.
                                
Worldspan has introduced a number of first-to-market hotel reservation solutions, making Worldspan Hotel Source® one of the most advanced and robust hotel booking technologies available. Recent enhancements to Hotel Source include Integrated Hotel Source Availability, which provides travel agents with real-time availability status directly from a participating hotel company's internal reservation  system, and Integrated Hotel Source Rate Range, which combined with Integrated Hotel Source Availability allows agents to shop for hotel properties on the first screen with real-time rate range and availability status.
                                
"As these powerful new innovations demonstrate, Worldspan's leadership position in both global travel distribution and travel e-commerce continues to pay dividends for all our customers�traditional travel agencies, e-commerce subscribers and travel suppliers�with industry-leading technology that cuts across conventional market sectors," noted McClam-Mitchell.
                                   
Worldspan provides global electronic distribution of travel information, Internet products and connectivity, and electronic commerce capabilities for travel agencies, travel service providers and corporations worldwide. The company's three lines of business are travel supplier services, e-commerce, and global distribution systems for the worldwide travel industry. The Worldspan reservations system provides nearly 21,000 travel agencies and other users worldwide with travel data and booking capabilities for hundreds of the world's leading travel supplier services.
                                   
Worldspan is the market leader in e-commerce for the travel industry, processing more than 50 percent of all online travel agency bookings. The company maintains world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.