Thanks to the pandemic, newly approved bylaws and turnover on the Global Business Travel Association board, 2021 will usher in a new era for the association. The membership has called for change, and two dozen industry professionals are vying for eight open board seats in elections that will run June 21 to July 19. The…
Last week, a federal court sentenced a Baltimore-area former owner of a travel booking company to a year and a day in prison for operationalizing one of the oldest tricks in the corporate travel book — using IBM’s rate code. It’s been a half-joke in the travel industry for decades, but it’s fraud, and some…
[CLARIFICATIONS, March 23, 2021: BCD Travel and Sammit Khanndeparkar of Springer Nature provided additional information to help the reader’s understanding of the developments covered in this article. Firstly, while Springer in 2019 spent nearly $40 million annually on travel and entertainment in 75 countries, BCD Travel’s portion of the account represented about $11 million and 11…
A pair of Europe-based ground transportation companies recently announced plans to speed up their transitions to electric vehicles. Meanwhile, Uber expanded its green program that charges passengers a bit more and pays drivers a bit more for rides in EVs. Many companies during the pandemic encourage employees to avoid public transport, if possible. Alternatives like…
Along with travelers and budget holders, corporate travel managers hold the keys to business travel industry recovery. Among three companies represented on a Sept. 24 Teleconference call, Anaplan was hardly traveling and iRobot and Jabil were traveling some. Their veteran travel managers found it interesting that their value within the organizations grew even after volumes…
Travel industry professionals not dealing with immediate health issues for themselves or their loved ones are nonetheless leading an uncomfortable existence. Many are natural networkers and extroverts. Spending nearly every minute within the same four walls is a mental health challenge. At least our plethora of communications tools are allowing us to stay connected. For…
The variety of constituents in the corporate world often challenges travel buyers to come up with the ideal means of communicating about travel program results. “What format do you want the data in?” is at once a terribly boring and crucial question. At S&P Global and other clients of PredictX, executives are seeing travel data…
