With uncharacteristic bluntness, two key providers in corporate travel this month separately identified inhibitors to progress. A Delta distribution exec urged buyers to pressure SAP Concur to get its act together. Sabre leaders criticized widely used corporate airfare policies as archaic. And it’s not just them; perhaps the pandemic is a boon for plain speaking….
The pandemic made more companies question the value of business travel, but at the same time, reliance on the partners that help manage it grew. According to a Global Business Travel Association survey last month, 52 percent of more than 300 travel buyers said their organizations’ reliance on travel management companies for service and support…
A startup that checks some of the buzzy boxes is looking to create a business travel marketplace without much of the traditional distribution infrastructure. TravelBloc will target the unmanaged and small and medium-sized business segments. It plans to enlist travel management companies for support and use a global distribution system, but direct connections to airlines…
Remember the good old days when corporate travel professionals would see 50 percent compliance to preferred booking channels for lodging as a big challenge? Nowadays, 50 percent of anything would be everything. Still, duty of care calls for companies that expect to travel again to address this issue, ensuring relevance for the question of whether…
The Global Business Travel Association named Dave Hilfman as interim executive director, replacing the embattled Scott Solombrino. It would be difficult to come up with a personality more suited to tackle the challenge at hand. Bringing in a highly respected industry icon should help the association close a messy episode and start fresh. Hilfman began…
Some corporate travel operations have moved from crisis mode to a more strategic phase. With virtually no business travel activity underway, everyone will be there soon enough. There’s plenty to do. According to industry consultants and travel buyers, managers can find opportunities to add value in areas including supplier relations, policy management and digital transformation….
Some travel management pros see service level agreements with travel management companies as pretty much worthless. SLAs can be hard to measure or validate, and they produce little actionable information. Others view SLAs as integral parts of TMC relationships. Without them, how do the two sides baseline performance, uncover service deficiencies and track improvement? From…
