Agreement Offers Relief to Business Travelers and Financial Efficiency to Corporate Travel Managers.

Building upon its leadership role in providing vital commercial payment and information management solutions, Visa U.S.A. today announced that it has teamed up with one of the foremost hospitality companies, Hilton Hotels Corporation, that streamlines the process of business travel expense reporting by providing business travelers enhanced folio data on all Visa Corporate and Purchasing card payment transactions.

With companies today striving to get the most from their travel dollars, Visa U.S.A.'s agreement with Hilton addresses the financial management and efficiency needs of corporate travel managers while also providing corporate travelers who use electronic expense reporting systems with the ease of pre-populated expense reporting when they stay at any of more than 2,000 participating Hilton Family hotels which include Hilton®, Conrad®, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, and Homewood Suites by Hilton® hotels.

According to a Visa 2002 Procure to Pay Study conducted by Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte & Touche, 69 percent of survey respondents have implemented a T&E card program, reporting one of the greatest benefits aside from the improved data access to be traveler convenience. The study also found that 26 percent of the companies studied have already implemented an enterprise wide expense reporting solution, while 36 percent plan to implement one in the next two years. One participating company reported that the average time to complete a pre-populated, automated expense report is two minutes, a 93 percent improvement from the industry average for completing a report manually.

Additionally, in a 2001 National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Direct Member Survey, 430 corporate travel managers addressed corporate card programs and the application of electronic folio data within business travel programs. Sixty-nine percent of respondents indicated they did not presently receive electronic folio data through their current corporate card, while 86 percent of those surveyed viewed such information as valuable to their travel program.

Hilton Hotels Corporation is the largest hotel company working with Visa U.S.A. to provide this additional service for business travelers. The enhanced folio data provided by Hilton includes such detailed information as room rates, telephone charges, total tax, and other items typically included in a folio invoice.

"Imagine coming back from a business trip and having all of your expenses captured electronically awaiting your review," said Michael L. Dreyer, Senior Vice President, Commercial Solutions, Visa U.S.A. "The enhanced information we're able to provide helps busy travelers save time and helps their company save money."

Business travelers paying with Visa commercial payment products will experience no visible changes during checkout, as the familiar process will remain the same. However, itemized expenses incurred during the hotel stay can now be passed electronically to the issuing financial institution, which then passes the data to its corporate clients, ultimately resulting in substantial benefits for travelers and travel managers alike. Fifty-eight percent of the NBTA travel managers surveyed considered the availability of electronic folio data of such value that they would consider shifting to new lodging partners as a means to receive the data.

"Hilton is proud to continue enhancing our guests' experience through innovative services," said Steven Armitage, Senior Vice President, Hilton Sales Worldwide. "We recognize that by providing our most important customer groups with itemized accounting information, we bring greater ease to their expense management and further differentiate Hilton in the marketplace."

Using the strength of Visa's proprietary payment network, VisaNet, member financial institutions will provide the enhanced folio data to their corporate clients and Visa commercial products users. This enhanced data can easily integrate with company accounting software, allowing companies to accurately distribute costs to specific accounts and streamline the expense reporting process. Additionally, travel managers can use the enhanced data to increase controls regarding travel policy compliance and enhance vendor relations. In relation to employee expense control, more than 76 percent of travel managers surveyed replied that electronic folio data was of significant importance in helping monitor and report on employee travel expenditures.