Global Business Travel Association

Dispatch 3

We broke the news on December 1 but it’s still sinking in. After hearing no mention of it on investor calls, we tried to contact the loquacious JPMorgan Chase analyst Jamie Baker to talk about it. We didn’t get a hold of him. This week, Baker told AA, “It feels as if you are taking…

TMCs Still Need More People, GBTA Poll Finds

Ninety percent of about 60 travel management company personnel polled in January by GBTA expected their firms to increase staff size in 2023 compared with last year. Forty-six percent said their companies were still smaller than they were before Covid. TMC staffing shortages and resulting service problems are not as widespread as they were several…

Traveler Tracking Wasn’t Good Enough, And Might Get Worse

Traveler tracking and TMC reporting systems couldn’t handle the crush of cancellations as SARS-CoV-2 raced around the globe almost three years ago. Inaccurate reports on traveler locations had companies spinning wheels. Is the industry ready for another large-scale event? In some ways, yes. Mostly no. And evolving airline distribution strategies are complicating everything.  Things will…

Swiss Study Offers Thoughts On When To Teams Or Trot (Audio)

Researchers again found virtual communication offers “limited” capacity to replace face-to-face meetings. But with support for predicted reductions of between 20 percent and 30 percent in business travel volume due to trends accelerated by the pandemic, they argued that understanding how businesspeople choose between travel and virtual “has become urgent.” Researchers at the University of…

Cards Still King As Airlines And Consultants Encourage Payment Alternatives

To achieve their retailing ambitions, airlines don’t just want to control distribution. Optimizing payments is also critical, according to some observers. Alternative models, methods and technologies that could help are in development, but the rise of rivals to the card has been predicted before. “Corporations seeking price breaks in markets where they influence load factors…

For Some Hilton Properties, It’s Dynamic Discounts Or Nothing In 2023

Pricing power for lodging suppliers, an altered traveler profile and uncertainty on the buyer side created unusual outcomes for 2023 rate negotiations. At some Hilton properties, this meant refusing to offer static negotiated rates and walking away from business. As customers sought to move rate programs back to the traditional static structure from a dynamic…

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