travel management company

Small, Midsize U.K. Travel Management Companies Reckon With British Airways Surcharge

With many travel management companies accepting the IAG airlines’ private channel GDS deals, which are left out? Industry experts see the “have-nots” facing ruin or consolidation. The puzzling part is, why would British Airways and Iberia want that? Posed to a BA press official, that question was not answered. International Airlines Group has declined multiple…

Consultancies Advocate Rightsized TMC Sourcing

Festive Road is a travel consultancy for the social media age. It’s got excellent communicators. Heck, it has The Company Dime as a partner. [UPDATE, 2019: Festive Road was a marketing and content partner for The Company Dime’s 2016-2019 Teleconference series.] When it comes to TMC sourcing, the U.K.-based firm’s announcement this week of a simpler…

Travel Manager Mobile Apps Find A Niche

As travel management companies race to improve traveler services via mobile apps, one concept that hasn’t exactly taken off is a travel manager interface. Still, a couple of TMCs are offering one. Christopherson Business Travel’s mobile app is entirely for program managers. It leaves the mobile traveler touchpoint to partner apps including Concur’s main app…

Sabre CEO Menke Explains The Private Channel

Sabre CEO Sean Menke confirmed what many suspected. The IAG private channel option for travel agencies caught up in reworked economics between airlines and GDSs is about foregoing GDS incentives. Parent of British Airways and Iberia, IAG created “two buckets for the agency community,” Menke explained during the Wednesday Bernstein Technology Summit. He called them the “haves…

Travelport Expects ‘Large Majority’ Of Its BA/Iberia Bookings To Use ‘Private Channel’

Travelport expects most bookings on British Airways and Ibera to be subject to the carriers’ new private channel option. That implies lower GDS incentive income for travel management companies. Travelport president and CEO Gordon Wilson on Thursday morning told investors that while negotiations were ongoing, “We think a large majority of our business with International Airlines Group…

Travel Leaders Group Buys North Carolina’s Travel Management Partners

Travel Leaders Group in July acquired Raleigh, N.C.-based Travel Management Partners. It’s another in a string of deals pushing TLG to the extremes of travel agency heft. Twenty-three year-old TMP employed about 135 people as of a year ago. According to The News & Observer of Raleigh, TMP in 2015 arranged more than $300 million in travel…

Lessons In Travel Globalization: Be Sensitive, Modest And Mature — But Firm

When Amway global sourcing manager Guy Langenburg attempted to gather data for global travel management consolidation, some local managers and suppliers hid it from him. No, really. They acted like children. It’s far from the first illustration of what corporate travel educators have been saying for years about globalization projects. You need to know your…

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