New Delhi, City-based Bird Group has launched a new travel planning software, 'Bird Res-SBT solutions', aimed at helping business houses reduce travel costs.

The group has tied up with travel technology provider Amadeus's e-Travel Management technology to launch the software in India.

"Our software for planning travels for business houses has come at a time when corporate travel managers are facing tremendous pressure to reduce travel cost and move towards video conferencing. We have got a very positive feedback from the industry," Bird Group executive director Ankur Bhatia said.

Due to economic downturn, organisations are desperately looking at reducing travel costs. "Our software would plan out and provide the best deal for the traveller," Bhatia said.

The air travel market in India is estimated at $14.5 billion while Indian corporate houses spend an average $6 billion annually on travels.

The company has received over 30 responses from industrial and corporate houses so far. As of now, few companies like the ABB Ltd and British Petroleum have subscribed Bird's travel-manager software.

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet has also subscribed, while Indigo Airlines will soon follow suit.

Bhatia said the subscribers, using a blackberry mobiles, can register on its website if they wanted to make a travel plan.

"The traveller would first get the consent from his work place. After getting a confirmation from the office, our software will work out plan for the employee travelling. This also keeps the organisation in a loop about the employee's travel plan at every level," Bhatia said.

Each travel transaction would cost about Rs.30.

The cost of the software for companies having an annual budget of less than Rs.10 million has been kept around Rs.500,000.

"But the cost of our software is higher for big companies," said Bhatia.

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