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…
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…
What if airline incentives paid to travel management companies don’t rebound? Former American Airlines head of global sales and distribution strategy Cory Garner thinks carriers should invest some of these dollars in interactions with corporate travelers and personalized fares. Garner argued in a Tuesday post that unstable airline capacity and feeble business traffic leave a lot…
Due to the pandemic, global airline capacity fell by 58 percent last year compared with 2019, according to IATA. In the first week of this year, the number of scheduled flights worldwide was down 44 percent. Steep declines in airline capacity exacerbated an old industry problem: the inability of passengers to reach destinations aboard their…
Last year, business travel professionals talked a lot about the fees that travel management companies charge their corporate clients — some saying they needed to evolve. The discussion continued into 2021, including via a new report from The BTA in the United Kingdom. Like many of last year’s conversations, the report didn’t say a lot…
GBTA a few months ago attempted to create an industry consensus behind rolling over 2020 hotel rates to 2021. Hotel companies were for it. They simultaneously pushed dynamic discounts off best available market rates to provide some protection for buyers. Some clients accepted that and ditched the RFP process for this year while others did…
The elimination of change fees by Alaska, American, Delta and United is good news for business travelers and corporate travel programs. It also generates new considerations for travel policies and program management that differ based on the details. Starting Sunday with United, the four airlines removed change fees for all domestic and some shorter international…
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