Last year, business travel professionals talked a lot about the fees that travel management companies charge their corporate clients — some saying they needed to evolve. The discussion continued into 2021, including via a new report from The BTA in the United Kingdom. Like many of last year’s conversations, the report didn’t say a lot about supplier payments. In a management fee model, The BTA wrote, “An agreed approach should be taken to commission. This can be retained by the TMC to offset the fee/profit or returned to the customer.” In that example and other scenarios, the availability of commission dollars influences what TMCs need to charge their clients to maintain profitability.
Consolidation in the travel management company business continues apace. On Thursday, American Express Global Business Travel, the largest player, announced its acquisition of New York-based Ovation Travel Group. The parties did not disclose terms. A highly respected corporate travel agency strong in the professional services, finance and legal sectors, Ovation has an ethos that GBT will work to preserve.
For many of us, the experience of walking down the hallway and running into a colleague is a distant memory — something we did in the Before Times. Serendipitous moments like these were not the product of weeks-long planning or email reminders. Instead, catching a coworker in the kitchen or copy room for an exchange of ideas just happened. And the inspiration and boost to productivity which sprung from there were equally unscheduled.
At the end of 2020, Sabre and Southwest Airlines announced they had come to terms on a “full participation” agreement. Some might not be clear on how that differs from the notion of “full content,” a pillar of airline-global distribution system agreements for going on 18 years that could be on the outs.
American Express Global Business Travel on Monday said it enabled customers to buy carbon offsets on “preferred terms” from two nonprofits, Carbonfund.org Foundation and Carbon Footprint. The program offers a variety of “verified and validated” offset activities customers can choose to support.
Covid-19 vaccinations are underway, and the light from the end of the tunnel is around the corner. Between here and there lies much work for employers struggling with how to build workforce immunity. Travel managers are in the thick of it. Should companies mandate vaccinations where and when they’re available to employees? What about specifically those who enter worksites — or travelers? What governments and suppliers end up requiring for travel may play a role in some company policies.
Short’s Travel Management sold its corporate portfolio to Direct Travel for an undisclosed sum. Short’s retains its athletic travel management business line. In a Tuesday message to customers, Short’s CEO David LeCompte cited the “many unknowns” facing corporate travel as a reason for the sale.
2015-06-02 • Comments Off on Lufthansa Remodels Corporate Travel Distribution With New Fee, Direct Play
Lufthansa Group in September will add a 16 euro per-ticket surcharge to bookings made through global distribution systems. The idea is to lower distribution costs...
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