The rationale behind a travel agency consortium in Australia announced Thursday by Flight Centre Travel Group mirrors the major dynamics impacting travel agencies and supports the company’s diversification. Group members serving both business and leisure travelers would use Flight Centre as a platform. Broadly speaking, the “invitation-only” Link Travel Group follows on the widespread desire…
Following the advent of corporate traveler self-bookings, travel management company competitors often blamed Egencia and its ilk for sparking a race to the bottom on client transaction fees. Part of the rationale was that as a more technologically oriented company, it was more efficient and enjoyed higher self-service adoption. Rivals tended to argue that they…
Not yet three years old, New York-based Ramp Business Corporation last month confirmed new financing of $750 million at a valuation of $8.1 billion. It announced that more than 5,000 businesses were on its platform, which “is powering over $5 billion of annualized payments volume.” It’s a tech firm that offers payments rather than a…
SAP Concur this month met with travel management company partners to discuss its roadmap and its migration to Amazon Web Services from internal cloud infrastructure. Begun late last year, the move underpins features like an updated shopping experience for Concur Travel, due out later this year. SAP Concur has parted with its most recognizable industry…
Arranging and purchasing travel for guests, interns, recruits and other non-employees is perceived by some to be challenging enough that focusing on it helped the entrepreneurs at Pana build a company interesting enough to be acquired. Spend management firm Coupa had other reasons to pay $48.5 million plus stock for Pana, and some customers now are…
The latest in a recurring survey by the Global Business Travel Association showed growing optimism among corporate travel buyers regarding their colleagues’ willingness to travel. Seventy-five percent of 290 buyer members from around the world last week indicated their companies’ employees were “very” or “somewhat” willing to travel for business “in the current environment,” according…
Delivering Covid-related info in the booking path is a challenge that may perpetuate outsized reliance on human support, but tech is the long-term answer. Booking tool developers hope that when corporate travelers come back in earnest, they’re pleasantly surprised by improved user experiences. Systems tap some of the same sources for Covid details that, pre-pandemic,…
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