Following his intimate involvement in an award-winning NDC corporate travel program, Tony D’Astolfo of Serko, in his unique way, spotlights one of the unsolved issues: the economics. Many have debated whether airline distribution evolution is mainly about the technology or the money. Both matter. They say you should never talk politics or religion. These days…

One of the pandemic’s silver linings has been greater awareness of and attention to corporate duty of care. According to Claire Langford, a veteran travel buyer and former TMC program manager now with CoreTrust Purchasing Group, organizations taking a broader view of employee wellbeing can not only mitigate risk, but also improve recruiting and retention….

Chainwide deals represent an integral part of a company’s hotel program. They supplement uniquely negotiated, core hotels as corporations aim to get the best possible savings and coverage while delivering sufficient breadth to support traveler wellbeing. But are travel managers effectively achieving their goals with chainwide deals?  Buyers typically negotiate with individual, strategic properties in…

Alex Thompson, founder and CEO of legal support provider Legaroo, thinks the digital nomad lifestyle is “wonderful.” He’s also got some words of caution. _________ The growing, geographically free lifestyle of digital nomads challenges companies to update their recruiting, legal and risk procedures. The trend is part of  business travel’s evolution since these employees work…

Serko’s Tony D’Astolfo is always ready to serve his two cents with a smile. There’s been a lot of talk about the Great Resignation. And while we could debate why it’s happening, something not up for debate is how hard the travel industry has been hit by it. Hospitality executives lament the difficulty of replacing…

Travel technology consulting veteran Norm Rose urges a push for smart contracts to improve the efficacy of negotiated corporate travel agreements. Emerging as the next generation of the internet, Web3 has a broad definition. It includes virtual reality in the metaverse, blockchain, token-based economics and decentralization of technology. For the corporate travel industry, the focus…

Travel manager Brad Seitz touched a nerve in his June 22 Op Ed cautioning travel suppliers not to blame corporate clients for failing to precisely project when and to what degree booking volumes would recover. In his response below, CWT chief customer officer Nick Vournakis doesn’t make excuses for insufficient TMC service. He knows providers…

Everyone is swamped and emotions are running high in travel. Industry veteran Brad Seitz, now head of travel, facilities and sustainability for workforce management firm Pro Unlimited, is not alone in accusing travel suppliers, particularly travel management companies, of playing a blame game in laying responsibility for some service woes at the feet of their…

American Express Global Business Travel VP for global product and user experience Mark McSpadden issues a call to action to advance sustainable travel. As the travel industry emerges from the pandemic, we have never experienced a stronger push to transform travel into a catalyst for environmental progress. After seeing the negative impact of zero travel,…

Glimpsing backward and forward, Fox World Travel chief information officer Sam Hilgendorf offers a primer on how self-sovereign identification works and a description of how it will impact business travel. When was the last time you felt in full control of your identity and personal information? For me, it was around 1997. I had my…

AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee argues that consolidation, legacy tech and outdated thinking sacrifice the industry’s greater good. Travel buyers, he asserts, must demand more innovation from providers. A few years ago Elon Musk and Warren Buffett had a pretty entertaining Twitter spat about moats – not the canal-around-the-castle kind, but the economic kind that companies…

Fox World Travel chief culture officer Audra Mead discusses the benefits of nurturing “leaders-in-progress.” By letting people — regardless of title — lead projects, present to senior executives and chart their journeys, organizations can get stronger from within and individuals can reach their potential. Organizational culture is the foundation from which leaders secure solid footing…

Danny Hood has seen it all during a career spanning four decades. In 1993 he joined WorldTravel Partners, which became WorldTravel BTI in 2001 and BCD Travel in 2006. He served the company as president of the Americas until 2010. Over the years, corporate travel boomed and busted a few times, and Hood was involved…

Andy Menkes has spent a career working with travel management companies — as a buyer, a TMC exec and an industry consultant. As companies assess their travel management service needs, he describes what he sees as a problem with fairness in TMC bids and offers a solution to resolve it. We are starting to see…

Last week was Mental Illness Awareness Week, followed on October 10 by World Mental Health Day. To help mark the occasion, International SOS SVP Dr. Robert Quigley weighed in on why and how organizations should recognize and support employees’ emotional health. The Covid-19 crisis has put employee health, particularly emotional health, at the forefront of…

Peter Waters heads the hotel IT solutions portfolio at Amadeus. Here’s his vision for how hotel companies can use new technologies to better personalize traveler experiences, recognize and reward their business, and earn a few extra bucks. Business traveler expectations for hotel stays have been evolving for a while. In some respects, the pandemic reinforced…

Smaller companies are resuming business travel more quickly than their larger peers. Brandon Strauss, president of CapTrav and partner at KesselRun Corporate Travel Solutions, argues that products and processes designed for that market segment can help expand managed travel and provide best practices for larger programs. It seems odd that less than 10 percent of…

GoldSpring Consulting’s Kathy Kent and Will Tate sketch out the foundations for going global with corporate travel management companies. Global is a frequently used term to describe a corporate travel program and its travel management company support. When you hear “global” and “TMC,” what model comes to mind? Everything from every country is the same?…

Clarity CEO Pat McDonagh muses on how his career would look today without the essential in-person moments. U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak caused a bit of a stir this week by suggesting that young people in business would benefit from being in the office because face-to-face interactions, learning opportunities and relationships are essential…

John Harvey of the Globalyse and Harvey & Heywood consultancies offers a game plan for taking advantage of a promising development in corporate travel sustainability. Up until the start of the global pandemic early last year, sustainable business travel was largely a matter of personal opinion. Many people were talking about it, but few companies…

Craig Fichtelberg is president and co-founder of AmTrav, a travel management company that has not participated in the latest cycle of acquisitions. He knows you’ll take his comments with a grain of salt. Consolidation among travel management companies has accelerated. Employees and customers are the most critical components in every acquisition. They’re also vulnerable and…

Scott Gillespie of tClara warned that his advice here would make “old-school” procurement folks gnash their teeth. “So be it,” he said. The sustainability issue is rising quickly up the executive agenda. The problem is what to do about it from a business travel perspective. I see a boldly simple but controversial solution with broader…

Fox World Travel’s George Kalka highlights why corporate travel programs may need to refresh the ways they gather input from travelers. Silent travelers can be found in every organization’s travel program. How are you listening? These travelers are our most challenging travelers to hear. Often, they are technology-forward, self-sufficient employees who are less likely to communicate…

In this guest post, Stefan Wälde of AirPlus offers a primer on Request to Pay and highlights its potential for commercial transactions. In the digital age, customers have many options for paying for their products and services. For this reason alone, it was important and right that the European Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was implemented…

Seasoned frequent traveler Tony D’Astolfo of Serko recognizes the value of face-to-face interaction, and is eager for more of it, but also that travel is harder nowadays. He asks a difficult question: What if businesspeople don’t want to get back on the road? Maybe I’ve gotten a bit too comfortable staying at home, wearing sweatpants…

Matt Blackmon is vice president of customer success for the Travel, Transportation & Hospitality Practice at DataArt, a global software engineering firm. Here he provides a primer on the cybersecurity issues facing those involved in handling corporate travel data. As business travel recovers, corporations will allow employees back on planes and they will reach back…