Hickory Global Partners

TMCs Still Need More People, GBTA Poll Finds

Ninety percent of about 60 travel management company personnel polled in January by GBTA expected their firms to increase staff size in 2023 compared with last year. Forty-six percent said their companies were still smaller than they were before Covid. TMC staffing shortages and resulting service problems are not as widespread as they were several…

Corporate Travel Services Adopt Vaccination Status, Trends As Inputs

The unvaccinated are getting and spreading the virus, and organizations are beginning to take a harder line despite the associated controversy and politics. Travel for work “generally” will not be available to unvaccinated federal employees, President Joe Biden said Thursday. On Friday, Walmart announced that home office employees and managers who travel within the United…

Startup TravelBloc To Leverage Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence In Business Travel Marketplace For Small And Medium-Sized Firms

A startup that checks some of the buzzy boxes is looking to create a business travel marketplace without much of the traditional distribution infrastructure. TravelBloc will target the unmanaged and small and medium-sized business segments. It plans to enlist travel management companies for support and use a global distribution system, but direct connections to airlines…

What The American Express Global Business Travel-Egencia Deal Would Mean (Think Hotels)

The planned acquisition by American Express Global Business Travel of Egencia has multiple implications depending on the party in question. For GBT, it’s about scale, particularly in the online midmarket. GBT has long coveted this segment, which has a fresh batch of well-funded competition. The deal will avail GBT’s big corporate accounts of more attractive…

New Firm That Connects Travelers With Local Lawyers Abroad Signs Travel Management Companies

Many in travel can tell a story of a friend or “a friend” who got into legal trouble in a foreign country. Whether more or less serious than a misdemeanor, such entanglements can be hugely disruptive. Travel management companies including First In Service and World Travel Inc. this month partnered with a new firm that…

The Future Of Travel Management Companies: Part Four, Pricing Comes To Jesus

People called for a restructuring of travel management company pricing for years before the pandemic; now, some call it urgent. Stopgaps are in place in some environments, allowing, for example, a corporate account to pay to retain dedicated counselors. In the long run, though, many see a need to change a pricing structure that mostly…

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