Continuing the furious pace of NDC-related announcements around the industry, Amadeus said American Airlines and BCD Travel agreed to join its NDC-X program. AA is the first North America-based carrier to commit. BCD joins U.S.-based American Express Global Business Travel and Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and Australia’s Flight Centre. For Amadeus, like Sabre and Travelport, incorporating NDC means mitigating content… Read More »
Under intense cost containment pressure during the past three years, Kellogg Company senior director of corporate services Cecile Mutch reinvented the travel department and boosted her role along the way. However, she didn’t always get her way. The Michigan-based, $13 billion global cereals and snacks maker in 2015 joined others in its industry with a zero-based budgeting approach to spending.… Read More »
BCD Travel said it added Pana, the startup specializing in recruiting and other non-employee travel, to its SolutionSource authorized third-party tech and service marketplace. The platform helps iron out the on-boarding process for third-party providers with BCD Travel clients. Existing participants include Freebird, Rocketrip, Tripbam and Yapta. Managing travel for contractors, recruits, interns and the like is challenging because… Read More »
Do rigid, frugal travel policies jeopardize employee performance? It’s debatable. Tripbam CEO Steve Reynolds is in the cost-control camp. His argument goes like this: It’s not the airplane seat or the hotel that makes for an effective trip. Get employees to their destinations safely and let their job training and specific skillset take it from there. “The cost… Read More »
Upside Business Travel a few months ago reduced its workforce by an undisclosed number. “To set ourselves up for long-term success in serving business travelers at scale, we reduced our headcount in some areas to allow us to invest more in product development and engineering,” according to a statement attributed this week to Upside president and COO Scott… Read More »
Tripkicks is a new tech company focused on helping companies spend less on business travel through employee incentives. Its approach is similar to that of Rocketrip, which helped popularize the notion of behavioral change based on shared savings. Tripkicks’ largest investor is Acquis Consulting, which also is a strategic partner helping with implementation. Tripkicks CEO Jeff Berk is… Read More »
A group of large travel management and commercial card entities is attempting to get answers from European regulators on a set of rules that could disrupt traditional corporate travel payment practices. Under Europe’s second Payment Services Directive, payment firms by September 2019 must implement strong customer authentication (SCA) for purchases made in European Union states with cards issued… Read More »