Industry opinion on what it’s like to shop for hotels in corporate booking tools falls somewhere between cumbersome and atrocious. Inexperienced travelers or those with few preferences might call it good enough. Travel managers don’t. They want improvements, and some have given up on providers delivering them. Not so fast, say developers including Amadeus, Deem, Egencia and nuTravel. They’re working on…
[UPDATE, Oct. 9: Amadeus statement included. An Oct. 12 BCD Travel statement is here.] Travel and expense management providers don’t expect drastic changes in response to the European Court of Justice’s annulment of a key EU-U.S. data privacy accord. The data will still flow. But they’re attentive to these and similar developments, and thinking about where they may need to stand up new servers….
Delta Air Lines has taken its interest in building loyalty among young business travelers to the corporate level. A relatively new, sometimes aggressive discount program targets up-and-coming midsize and tech businesses. It doesn’t require marketshare or volume commitments to get started. Sources said the deals run from 2 percent discounts off restricted coach to several more percentage points depending on the…
Leesburg, Va. — It’s not uncommon to find travel managers who believe in Concur’s vision for TripLink but question whether it’s ready. Aggressive marketing has inflated expectations. Concur has acknowledged that building the service takes a long time. Maybe the mantra now should be “slow and steady” as the company ticks off delivery of key functions. A couple of newly developed capabilities appeal to travel managers…
Airbnb last month announced that “business demand” surged and more than 1,000 companies had “formally” made it “part of their corporate travel programs.” The statement garnered press about corporate executives clamoring for the service, but it overreached. After our queries, Airbnb deleted the word “formally” from its announcement. [UPDATE, Sept. 21: Oddly, Airbnb has since reinserted the word.] It is unusual for…
[UPDATE, Feb. 3, 2017: ARC discontinued this initiative in late 2015.] Using technology from ARC, Protravel International and Tzell Travel Group are joining the ranks of business travel agencies offering mobile apps. The ProTrip and tZapp apps are downloadable from the Android and iOS stores but not yet out of client beta. According to a spokesperson for the two agencies’ parent company, Travel Leaders…
CIO Magazine announced Aug. 1 that Marriott International earned a “CIO100” award for its application programming interface platform, created in 2014. Marriott senior director for B2B e-commerce Geoff Heuchling earlier that week gave corporate travel professionals an idea of why APIs matter to them. He made them sound pretty huge. Enabling new ways to integrate internal applications, distribute data externally, service customers and interact with partners, the…
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