Upside Business Travel a few months ago reduced its workforce by an undisclosed number. “To set ourselves up for long-term success in serving business travelers at scale, we reduced our headcount in some areas to allow us to invest more in product development and engineering,” according to a statement attributed this week to Upside president and COO Scott… Read More »
Tripkicks is a new tech company focused on helping companies spend less on business travel through employee incentives. Its approach is similar to that of Rocketrip, which helped popularize the notion of behavioral change based on shared savings. Tripkicks’ largest investor is Acquis Consulting, which also is a strategic partner helping with implementation. Tripkicks CEO Jeff Berk is… Read More »
[CORRECTION, July 13, 2018: The original version of this article incorrectly identified one of the owners of Atriis. Along with Israel’s Amsalem, the other co-owner is Vision Capital, a U.K.-based private equity firm.] Some travel management companies are coming to grips with the New Distribution Capability, and they’re not going it alone. Global distribution systems, agency networks, tech… Read More »
A “next-gen” global corporate travel technology and management outfit related to TSI USA is hawking services with $0 fees to corporate buyers. Called TripEasy, the startup plans to exit stealth mode this summer. The TripEasy website indicates users incur no fee for basic services including online booking, a bot, employee profiles, company policy and reporting. Five dollars per transaction adds corporate… Read More »
Southwest Airlines is using new revenue management tools in a fight against lower-cost competition. For travel buyers, the impact could be fewer low airfares from Southwest and, in turn, its big three U.S. rivals. Already there are signs pointing to fare hikes during the second half of this year. Fuel prices are up, prompting some airlines to slow capacity… Read More »
Egencia president Rob Greyber has been thinking a lot about the long view. He has opinions on how leading travel management companies will develop to serve both travelers and travel buyers. Part of that is to deliver a platform on which add-on services sit. To that end, Egencia has arrangements with no less than nine new partners under… Read More »
A Connecticut woman this week pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million from her company during a three-year period to 2016 by exploiting payment and expense reimbursement processes. As much as business leaders would like to trust employees, preventing them from stealing is a big reason to have travel and expense management. Despite corporate efforts to reduce… Read More »