TravelBizBuzz

Southwest Airlines is out to win over suits with some changes to the way it serves them. Announced Nov. 7, a new "Business Select" fare guarantees customers will be first to board the plane, promises a free onboard cocktail and bestows extra Rapid Rewards credit for the flight.

"We know that our true road warriors want to make traveling on Southwest Airlines as quick and easy as possible, and providing the choice to be among the first to board is key," said Kevin Krone, Southwest's VP of of marketing, sales and distribution.

Recent changes to the Rapid Rewards program also cater to travelers looking for special attention. Now members who have flown 32 one-way flights or 16 roundtrips in a year will gain a spot on the airline's "A-List," which offers them automatic check-in in advance of flight departure, thereby giving them a fighting chance to grab an "A" boarding pass. Plus, a new "Freedom Award" promises travelers a chance to book a rewards flight with no blackout date restrictions.

"As promised Southwest has made value added improvements that will differentiate our product without changing our core business," said Gary Kelly, Southwest CEO.

-- Scott Walker, Editor in Chief, TDR

Posted by TDR at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's guest blogger is Michael Strauss, CEO of PASS Consulting.

Industry analysts anticipate formidable growth of 20 percent annually for the United States in the online segment. For 2008 the Internet is expected to be the preferred tool for travel planning. A similar trend can be observed worldwide.

But while direct distribution via suppliers’ own websites already accounts for almost 60 percent of the bookings in the leisure segment and is still growing, in business travel the use of online tools still varies greatly from company to company. The expected run towards direct connections has not yet occurred.

Instead, large TMCs operating worldwide emerged as a result of their customers going global and expecting expense reduction and travel management as well as global service. Thus TMCs appeared to be in control, but conflicts of interest are intensifying; suppliers as well as GDS are trying to sell their corporate online booking tools directly to large national corporations and thus exclude the TMCs from the value creation chain. All of the various entities see themselves under threat from each other. And although the players are in intensive negotiations, in the long run, every flexible entity will try to keep its share in a fragmented distribution chain as long as it pays off.

A few things are certain: Airlines will continue to offer flights, hotels will offer accommodations and business travel will remain a part of corporate life. Everything that takes place in between is a form of distribution and therefore part of the value creation chain — and this is where the added value has to be created. All stakeholders — whether GDS operators, technology providers, aggregators, alternative distributors, online or offline agencies — have to reinvent themselves on a continuous basis.

Find out more about how to cope with developments in the U.S. and European travel markets by reading PASS Consulting’s whitepaper entitled “Trends In The Travel Industry: Why It Is Well Worth Taking A Look At The US.”

Posted by TDR at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’ve been talking about the blurring line between corporate and leisure travel for some time now. But the amount of recent attention on the so-called “unmanaged” set of business travelers, those that sort of fall right in that blur, is astounding.

Examples: Both Orbitz and Expedia have recently unveiled sites specifically aimed at serving unmanaged business travelers (that’s in addition to their regular corporate travel sites). But this somewhat undefined animal can be hard to serve. Here’s how two companies are doing it:

VIEW #1: Think Leisure, Play The Price-Sensitive Card: Unmanaged business travelers typically come from small companies — which often means small budgets. “People sometimes assume that business spend during travel doesn’t matter because the company is paying for it, but a large percentage of these folks are either managing their own budgets or they’re small business owners, so they do care a lot about the value they’re getting,” says Orbitz Worldwide CMO, Randy Wagner. Orbitz’ strategy is to offer the customer the same types of prices they would see when booking leisure travel. “We’ve heard qualitatively that some people don’t like to self-identify as businesses because they’re concerned somehow that they would get a different set of prices,” Wagner tells TDR.

VIEW #2: Think Corporate, Don’t Rule Out Extra Services: When GetThere seeks out potential managed business travel clients, “we do keep an eye on functionality that would bring an unmanaged traveler more readily into a managed program, and that means bringing corporate functionality with a leisure twist to it,” confirms Bev Heinritz, GM for GetThere and senior VP for Sabre Travel Network. Some companies aren’t as strict about their employees following policy, or they will let a segment of their travelers book on low-cost carriers, Heinritz points out. But that doesn’t mean companies with small travel budgets aren’t interested in having employees follow travel policies, Heinritz says. In fact, more and more companies are concerned about security and risk management, which is often “a trigger point for putting a structured program in place,” she says.

You can read more industry analysis of the opportunity unmanaged biz travel offers in the TDR article “Unmanaged Business Travelers — And Their $15B Revenue Stream — Prove A Hot Pick.” Get your free copy by writing to me.

-- Kimberly Gilbert, Managing Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

American Express Business Travel (AEBT) is setting its sites on Asia, and other TMCs will want to tune in too.

In conjunction with its July 24 unveiling of a new web-based management information (MI) data reporting solution, AEBT announced the acquisition of the remaining 63 percent shares in its joint venture with Farrington Travel, established in October 1999. The deal turns Hong Kong’s Farrington American Express Travel Services Limited into a new wholly owned travel management venture for AEBT.

Perspective: The Asia-Pacific region is heating up with corporate travel opportunities. “There is immense potential for long-term economic growth in the JAPA [Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australia] region, and business travel spend is directly linked to the growth of the economy,” said Libby Roy, VP and GM of JAPA business travel.

The evidence: AEBT has already capitalized on the strong economic growth in the region, reporting a 10-percent increase in year-over-year sales for the first five months of 2007. The company attributes this growth to increased client retention rates coupled with new business wins totaling $135 million, including global brands such as ABN Amro in Australia and Symantec Corp. in India.

--Lindsey Rushmore, Editor-In-Chief, Travel DIstribution Report--

Posted by TDR at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One headline that caught my eye at the end of last week was from an April 12 Portaga Inc. press release, which posed a hefty dare to the big dogs, Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity.

The challenge: We’re dropping our booking fees for the unmanaged business traveler -- can you? Portaga boasted.

The company made this statement just a little more than a week after it unveiled TripSync, a free desktop travel-planning tool linked with Microsoft Outlook for the unmanaged business traveler.

Portaga’s message strongly suggests that this differentiating factor could create a market shift. It claims the unmanaged business travel market, which rakes in a whopping $9.2 billion per year, could realize “staggering” cost savings by eliminating the fees ranging from $5-$10 per booking.

Watch for: Although Portaga has challenged the big guys to drop their booking fees, the real challenge will be to see if unmanaged business travelers discover enough savings to make the tool worthwhile.

I checked out the tool, and I wonder if unmanaged business travelers like myself would take the extra time to download this tool simply to save their company five bucks on a flight -- especially when they could go elsewhere, like a metasearch engine, and find a lower ticket price by say, $30.

Also, if the fees will be waived “indefinitely,” does that mean they have the chance of coming back? The unmanaged business traveler would have to take that chance.

I’ll be interested to see the big online travel agencies’ reactions if Portaga’s tactic works well. Will they drop their booking fees too? Lower them, or use them as marketing leverage? Tell me what you think.

--Lindsey Rushmore, Editor-In-Chief, Travel Distribution Report--

Posted by TDR at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The German corporate travel market will soon have a taste of Expedia. That’s because Expedia Corporate Travel (ECT) plans to acquire MTM Reisen, a corporate travel provider that serves the German market.

ECT announced Nov. 15 its agreement with MTM Reisen, which marks ECT’s fourth European acquisition, following the launch of offices in the UK, France and Belgium.

ECT plans to continue expanding in the European market, but notes the importance of knowing that market well. “MTM Reisen’s local market knowledge and service expertise combined with Expedia’s award-winning technology will enable us to better serve travelers in a country that represents one of the largest corporate travel markets in Europe,” said Jean-Pierre Remy, ECT president.

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, MTM Reisen has both German and international clients. Under the terms of the acquisition ECT expects the majority of MTM Reisen’s employees to join Expedia Corporate Travel Germany, including company founder Helmut Rainalter, the release explained.

Neither company disclosed the terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in December.

Posted by TDR at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (280)

BCD Travel has gone an ambitious route in attempting to get more inventory at its fingertips.

BCD has chosen Farelogix’s FLX Platform “to better optimize the many supplier and distribution services available in the travel market from a content, functionality, and financial point of view,” according to a Nov. 13 press release.

The key benefit to BCD’s deal with Farelogix is that its travel agents can use the platform to source travel inventory from many channels, including supplier-direct connections, GDSs as well as private and Internet fare sources.

The FLX Platform will also help BCD Travel centralize its data sources, faring and shopping, as well as its travel policy. BCD Travel agents may “source travel content against an infinite number of flexible, rules-based criteria,” including lowest cost to the supplier (competitive booking source) and best content source according to supplier (i.e. Web site), Farelogix said.

BCD Travel will also have the ability to manage contractual commitments made to its customers, the GDSs and suppliers. For example, the TMC can set rules to ensure the appropriate GDS bookings are met, or that a minimum number of bookings per month are made via a particular source of content.

Posted by TDR at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Singapore Airlines’ corporate customers now have a “complete payment and cost analysis solution,” thanks to a recent partnership between the carrier and AirPlus International.

AirPlus International, a global business travel payment solutions provider, will now offer Singapore Airline corporate customers the AirPlus Company Account, according to an Oct. 26 press release.

The account is an air travel payment, billing and reporting system that gives the airline’s corporate customers an option to pay for travel on Singapore Airlines and more than 200 other carriers, charge other travel expenses and help manage their company’s travel budgets.

Corporate customers will also gain access to the AirPlus Information Manager, which provides a complete analysis of all travel services. “With the information that is gained, companies will recognize cost-cutting opportunities and have the optimal basis for negotiations with airlines, hotels, car rental companies and other service providers,” AirPlus said.

Posted by TDR at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

KDS, an online business travel management solutions provider now has further global access to independent and chain hotels.

To make this happen, KDS signed an agreement with Pegaus Solutions Inc. to use its UltraDirect electronic distribution service, according to a Sept. 6 press release.

Now KDS users have direct access to more than 60,000 independent and chain hotels worldwide, with instant venue information, such as rates, availability, reservations and inventory. UltraDirect will give KDS customers complete control of the booking experience, making it easy to integrate other business traveler services, such as car, flight and train reservations.

Because UltraDirect works compatibly with virtually any programming language and Web infrastructure, KDS may also customize the program’s front-end interface to meet its customers’ travel needs.

Posted by TDR at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The wrangling between airlines and GDSs these days is keeping travel managers up at night worrying about money.

A National Business Travel Association (NBTA) survey polled 237 NBTA members and found that travel managers’ top concern due to recent distribution changes is cost implications (90 percent). Following in a close second and third were booking efficiency and fragmentation of content at a respective 75 percent and 68 percent, according to an Aug. 23 release.

The NBTA survey data shows that travel managers are poised to drive changes in their companies’ access to booking services. These changes could shift market share currently held by various airline and GDS providers.

For example, 22 percent of survey participants are attempting to pinpoint which channel is used most for fare searches and bookings. Armed with that knowledge, they could then “drive cost-savings by moving to cheaper distribution options and potentially working directly with airline partners to share savings,” NBTA said.

Managers are also bracing for increases in distribution costs with coping plans already in the works: 24 percent said their companies would take fewer trips, 25 percent will use more phone/video/web conferencing, and 21 percent will increase use of low cost carriers.

Posted by TDR at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (161)

Travelocity Business is out to remove potential pitfalls from corporate travelers’ flights.

The online agency has enhanced its mid-office and agent desktop systems to produce e-mail alerts to travelers as soon as a potential discontinuity is detected in their itineraries, TBiz announced July 17.

Potential e-mail alerts include when travelers book round trip tickets that arrive and depart from different airports, a connecting flight arrives at one airport and departs from a different airport or hotel dates don’t match arrival and departure dates.

The alerts are part of TBiz’s “continued effort to make the business travel experience as seamless as possible for travelers by keeping them updated with the travel information they need,” said Ellen Keszler, president of corporate solutions at Sabre Holdings.

Posted by TDR at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)