TMCs, Buyers Face Extended Sourcing Due To Legal, Security, IT Needs
TMC sourcing isn’t for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the impatient, as the sales cycle extended considerably in recent years.Providers are developing new products and services, making some customer relationships more involved. But the elongated time between an RFP and final contracts is primarily due…
Flight Centre Grows Corporate Margins Thanks To AI, Proprietary Tech
Since the fourth quarter of 2023, Flight Centre Travel Group’s corporate division has used artificial intelligence to categorize, prioritize (by revenue opportunity) and respond to more than half a million incoming customer emails. “Over 4,000 hours of agent time have been saved in the past quarter,” the company revealed…
Notebook: ExxonMobil Saves Half A Mil With Engagement Campaign
Atlanta – ExxonMobil’s internal “Do The Math” campaign aims to optimize four aspects of traveler booking behavior: online booking adoption, lowest logical fare use, advance ticket purchasing and preferred hotel utilization. The company’s communications strategy, featuring extensive use of banner ads, was one of three engagement case studies…
Swiss Re’s Internal Carbon Levy Helped Slash Emissions, Halve Travel Spending
From a 2018 baseline, Swiss Re last year cut business air travel spending in half and slashed associated greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60 percent. A lot went into those reductions, including an internal carbon price coupled with carbon budgets.A $50 billion Zurich-based provider of reinsurance and…
Funny Money? ‘Tech Credits’ Help TMCs Differentiate Packaging Of Tech, Services
Research: Business Traveler Compliance To Policy Is Strong
Four in five business travelers “never” or “rarely” choose out-of-policy options, according to an April BCD Travel poll of 1,201 business travelers worldwide. Seventeen percent indicated they sometimes chose out-of-policy options, 3 percent said they “often” did and 1 percent picked “always.”An unrelated May-June survey by Deloitte of…
American Airlines Surveys Buyers About Policies, Partners And Perks
As American Airlines tries to rebuild its sales bridges and considers various policies related to corporate and loyalty programs, the airline asked buyers to teach it about the corporate market. Several travel managers this month said AA sent them surveys asking about their travel policies, relationships with travel management…
CTM Cites AI Chatbot, Hotel Tool For Improved Profitability
Delta Renews Full Content Global Distribution System Deals
Corporate Travel 101
What Matters When Choosing A Corporate Travel Consultant
Explainer: IATA’s New Distribution Capability
Corporate Travel’s Key Performance Indicators Adapt To Updated Priorities
Cost control remains corporate travel management’s cornerstone, but shifts in the relationships between employers and their people (and the planet) brought updated metrics to the fore. Newer key performance indicators on satisfaction and sustainability increasingly accompany negotiated savings in the assessment toolkit. Measuring program compliance continues to underpin multiple priorities.According to buyers and consultants, relentless focus on cost savings can…
Explainer: Passive Segments
From a travel management perspective, the cleanest and easiest way to book travel is through a content channel fed by a global distribution system. Many travel management company tools and processes are based on or integrate with GDS technology. It’s been the predominant way corporate travel has worked for decades. It still is, but rates and inventory also come from…
Explainer: The ARC Corporate Travel Department
Is ARC’s Corporate Travel Department designation more or less valuable than before the pandemic? The question is rumbling around among some corporate travel managers as they look to reconstruct their programs with new priorities, such as control.What is a CTD? It establishes commercial and legal relationships with travel suppliers through ARC which are similar to those set up by travel…
Explainer: Self-Sovereign Identity
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Op Ed: Atyab Bhatti On Getting *A Little* Technical With AI, Part One: LLM Overview
SkyLink CEO and co-founder Atyab Bhatti provides this overview of some key concepts to kick off a series of slightly high-tech posts about artificial intelligence. Notorious for its multiple complexities, corporate travel is slowly bowing to the transformative capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI). A breakthrough in that revolution is generative AI, an innovation backed by…
Op Ed: Matthew Newton On Removing Algorithmic Bias In Pursuit Of Equitable Travel
Having seen up close the dangers of algorithmic bias in artificial intelligence, CWT’s Matthew Newton has some suggestions for risk mitigation. Artificial intelligence is being deployed at scale in business travel management, with algorithms changing the game for service consistency, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. But this watershed moment threatens to unleash a monster. Algorithmic bias in…
LATEST CUSTOMER PROFILES
Geotechnology Firm Keller Goes Old School To Scale Virtual Payment
Atlanta — Keller North America is an engineering company employing many workers who may not carry phones to job sites. They don’t have corporate-issued phones or corporate email addresses to receive communications. And no corporate cards. They often join the firm at the last minute in far-flung locales. Keller uses virtual cards for about $14 million in annual spending, nearly…
In Meta’s Spotnana-CWT Pilot, Bug Squashing And Promise
Atlanta — Facebook parent Meta began a pilot with Spotnana this spring in partnership with its incumbent travel management company, CWT. With “many thousands” of travelers in the pilot “around the globe,” the $135 billion social media firm expects a majority of bookings to use the New Distribution Capability by the end of next year.Meta limited the rollout to five…
Notebook: Novel Hotel Rate Negotiating Strategy Catches Buyer Attention
Nobody likes the annual corporate hotel RFP process. Buyers want longer-term deals, but the industry’s sourcing infrastructure doesn’t effectively support them. What about negotiating evergreen deals that tie rates to market indexes?Elevance Health travel services consultant Dan Stagnitta is exploring it. During a June 6 BTN webinar sponsored by Cvent, Stagnitta described as “silliness” the annual process that ends with…
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Caveat Emptor: ‘Hidden’ Fees Are A Ground Transportation Industry Fixture
In a business travel sector as dynamic and competitive as ground transportation, there’s a lot to keep up with. While it’s got some new twists, one thing that hasn’t changed is the buyer’s need to heed add-on charges. “It’s a massive issue,” claimed Blacklane CEO and co-founder Jens Wohltorf during a phone interview last month. “The creativity is endless. Not only in…
The Year In Polls: Travel Risk Is Ubiquitous, Preparation Isn’t
It’s clear that travel risk management is a top priority for travel management professionals (1, 2). Recent industry research, though, showed companies are at varying stages of preparedness. The demand is there. Company leaders, investors and regulators may insist on certain measures. Travelers are asking, too. One-quarter of the travel managers polled in April 2017 by the Association of Corporate Travel…