In corporate travel, sourcing is all about negotiating deals with airlines, hotels, car rental companies and other suppliers. Of course, organizations want to get the best value, but travel procurement is about more than price. It’s also about using data to monitor performance on both sides, working with intermediaries, building deeper relationships and exploring new technologies that improve processes.
Delta Air Lines in 2015 started offering tailored packages of products and services to corporate accounts. It’s not doing that anymore. It has other ways to enrich commercial relationships with add-ons. The change in strategy reflects two different ways airlines view the concept of corporate bundles. Travel managers for a while talked up the idea of…
For those who found Hilton’s restrictive “flexible” rates problematic, there’s some good news. A Hilton official confirmed the hotel company ended a test of those rates. But don’t be surprised if you see them again. Like Basic Economy airfares, these kinds of hotel rates aren’t suited for corporate travel. Some program managers would rather not include…
[UPDATE, April 18, 2017: Uber for Business now lets users request and pay for rides for others. The account is centrally billed. Uber business clients access the “Central” service dashboard via tablet or computer. They can request multiple rides for fellow employees, customers or others. Those riders do not need to use the Uber app…
[CLARIFICATION, Jan. 4, 2017: An HRS spokesperson explained that while the company promotes independent properties, it does not require sourcing clients to commit to using them. Rather, those clients are asked to funnel “a reasonable” share of total hotel volume through HRS systems. This article has been updated with that information.] U.S. corporate negotiated hotel…
Aiming to help smaller and middling travel management companies compete with the biggies, ABC Global Services launched a hotel sourcing service targeting midmarket corporate accounts. The program goes beyond the consortia rate program ABC already offers, helping businesses contract in markets where they have enough volume to do better than those group rates. Several other…
In the real world, contracts are a necessary evil. They require too many eyes and are full of unintelligible language. They can leave too much room for interpretation. Some are designed ideally to never be used, in the legal sense. Let’s say your company commits volume to a supplier in exchange for a discounted rate….
Back in the day, business travelers used physical airline tickets. This helped, though did not ensure, that when non-refundable tickets went unused, credits would be applied to other trips. Then tickets went electronic, and they were more often forgotten. Managing unused ticket credits remains a pain in the a$$. And that’s company cash. So when…
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