HEDNA Supports NBTA Loading White Paper,
	The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) announced its endorsement of the corporate negotiated rate loading guidelines recently published by the National Business Travel Association (NBTA).
The NBTA paper, Rate Loading: Strategies for Buyers and Sellers, provides guidelines for corporate travel managers to ensure their negotiated hotel rates are properly loaded in to the Global Distribution Systems (GDS). The annual total of corporate negotiated discounts is estimated at about 1.5 billion USD, and when rates are incorrectly loaded, the value of negotiations are not fully realized for hotel companies or their corporate customers. HEDNA President Jimmy Suh commented, 'Improperly loading of rates has long been a challenge facing the hotel electronic distribution community and the corporate customer. We applaud the NBTA Hotel Committee's efforts to clarify and instruct travel managers on overseeing the loading process.' 'Travel managers and hotels negotiate rates and services over several months. When those rates are not properly loaded, they cannot be booked at the point of sale, and companies leave money on the table,' said Brian Nichols, Chair of the NBTA Hotel Committee. 'NBTA is pleased that HEDNA, an association dedicated to advancing effective electronic distribution of hotel inventory, has endorsed NBTA's guidelines for managing rate loading.' Nichols will speak at HEDNA's 2005 Conference, being held in San Francisco, 4-6 December, 2005, on how the NBTA paper came to fruition and its recommendations. For information on registering for the Conference, visit www.hedna.org. Rate Loading: Strategies for Buyers and Sellers is available to NBTA members at www.nbta.org/Research/WhitePapers. About HEDNA The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) is a not-for-profit trade association whose worldwide membership includes executives and managers from over 200 of the most influential companies in the hotel distribution industry. Founded in 1991, all of HEDNA's activities are intended to stimulate the booking of hotel rooms through the use of GDS, the Internet and other electronic means. HEDNA brings all segments of the hotel industry together to evolve systems and services into electronic distribution that is easy and efficient. Additional information on HEDNA is available by calling +1 703 970-2070 or by visiting www.hedna.org.