It isn’t easy to make a going concern out of selling standalone corporate self-booking software. Commenting last year on why he didn’t want to be in that business, veteran travel tech exec Greg Webb, CEO of Travelport, couldn’t resist using the word commodity. He said corporate booking tools were often part of broader solutions and…
JPMorgan Chase agreed to acquire Frosch, a large travel agency with a mix of corporate business, independent contractors and technology, according to a Wednesday report in The Beat. Frosch officials declined to comment on the report, which cited an internal memo, but redirected an inquiry to a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase. The official had not…
Travelport this month announced enhancements including a self-service portal allowing travelers to manage their bookings. The portal was one reason longtime Travelport subscribers Christopherson Business Travel and Fox World Travel upgraded to the new Travelport+ platform. The pair also cited multisource content aggregation, new merchandizing capabilities and more automation for things like ticket exchanges. Travelport…
After hitting a 14-year high in 2019, passenger commissions paid by U.S. airlines to travel agencies bottomed out in 2020 along with passenger volumes, and stayed low through the first nine months of last year. The pandemic also changed the passenger mix, as mainly domestic leisure passengers made for a lower-value booking environment. Lower-value bookings…
TravelPerk’s valuation tops $1 billion partly because its per-trip costs are five times lower than those of traditional travel management companies, according to its chief commercial officer. “TripActions and TravelPerk are measured like Software-as-a-Service companies, such as Workday, Slack or Zendesk, and not like an Amex or a more traditional travel company,” said TravelPerk CCO…
When American Express Global Business Travel last month announced plans to go public during the first half of this year via a merger with a blank check company, it noted a set of “most relevant” publicly traded peer companies. These included the only public travel agency firm totally focused on business, Australia-based Corporate Travel Management,…
It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario as corporate travel management companies face hard decisions on staffing. When clients resume traveling, they need reliable, expert service more than ever. But with demand in doubt, how proactive can TMCs be in bringing back their people and recruiting more? It’s a question that begets more. How have agent roles been…
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