The Knowledge > Buyer perspective
The trouble with KNOW-IT-ALLS!
Hero Trew of IMG voices the frustration of every travel manager in having to deal with travellers who think they know best
Hero Trew GLOBAL TRAVEL MANAGER, IMG Hero has worked in travel for 22 years. She started out in business travel, working for HRG on prestigious SME accounts, before moving to IMG in the mid-nineties as a senior consultant for American Express. After going on maternity leave she was asked by IMG to come back and work with the then travel manager. In 2003 she took on the role of travel manager and has now been promoted to global travel manager. IMG is currently launching a new travel partner, Orbitz For Business, in the US and UK.
THE words that I dislike hearing the most at work are: “But I found the fare cheaper on the internet”. Nine times out of ten they probably did, but how much of their working day has been given up to make a small saving on their flight to Europe? Travel is a tricky beast, with each
flight having a multitude of different fare levels being sold and a minefield of rules and restrictions. It does make it a very competitive industry with TMCs, consolidators, tour operators and the suppliers themselves all vying for our business. But if we let all our travellers and bookers go their own way, we as travel managers come up against a set of problems. As an organisation we need to
know where our employees are located – that's just corporate responsibility. In an age where there is sadly violent unrest in parts of the world and mother nature is giving us something of a bashing, we do actually need to be able to have a reliable central source to know where our people are. Think back to April 2010 and the Eyjafjallajökull volcano – did your organisation know where every traveller was and manage to find a way to get them home safely? Mine didn’t know straight away, until a bit of research by our HR Manager, and as a result we realised we needed to tighten up our policy. Now we’ve gained greater compliance booking through our preferred channels. That small saving your booker may
have made on that internet booking doesn’t compare to the value of having
“If every traveller booked their flight direct, our spend would be so fragmented that we’d lose the ability to negotiate deals”
your HR department and
your TMC knowing exactly where your employees are located and beginning the process of getting them home as safely and as quickly as possible. If every traveller booked
their flight online and saved the company a bit of cash, the spend would be so
fragmented that we’d lose the ability to negotiate any deals. We would no longer have a true picture of how
much we have spent or where our key destinations are, thus losing our buying power with airlines, hotels and car hire companies. Organisations would also lose the
value of the 'kick-back' schemes that many suppliers now use to reward companies. You can be sure the majority of bookers don’t know your special code that needs to be put in the reservation on checking out of their internet booking, or have their credit card registered to your scheme. In my organisation these schemes deliver a saving of around £50k per annum on top of any other deals we have in place, so that’s another significant loss if everyone booked their travel directly. Even if your company doesn’t have
a TMC working in partnership with you, and you just have a preferred corporate credit card for your employees, this method of payment should be used. Most of these organisations have the ability to give your company data on your spend – important figures that can be used as negotiating tools. If your traveller has a problem with
their reservation and needs someone’s help, who do they ask? Generally they approach the travel manager, but if they haven’t booked via the company’s preferred method then, to the supplier, they’re just an individual, and that supplier has no real idea of what your company is worth to them. Some suppliers won’t even allow
their corporate account managers to touch an online reservation as they treat that as a separate part of their organisation. Most TMCs with their huge buying power generally have a contact at all the major airlines, hotels and car hire companies, so even if your organisation doesn’t work with the supplier your TMC might find another way to seek assistance with your issue. My point is, travellers must always
use their company’s preferred method of booking without exception. There are many reasons why it makes sense, as well as giving your travel manager a break!
JARGON BUSTER ➔ ACRONYMS: sadly you just can't get away
from them in the dynamic world of business travel. So to help you out we've listed some of the most commonly used ones below, just so you don't get your Frequent Flyer Programmes confused with the Faculty of Family Planning.
ACFO ACTE ADR APIS ATOC
BAR BTA BTC
Association of Car Fleet Operators
Association of Corporate Travel Executives average daily room rate
Advanced Passenger Information System Association of Train Operating Companies
BAPCO British Association of Professional Conference Organisers
best available rate business travel agent business travel centre
CDW collision damage waiver CRM CRO CRS CSR DDR ETES FFP
GDS
customer relationship management central reservation office central reservation system corporate social responsibility daily delegate rate end-to-end solution
frequent flyer programme global distribution system
GTMC Guild of Travel Management Companies HBA
hotel booking agent
HBAA IATA ITM KPI LRA MI
MIA MPI
Hotel Bookings Agents Association International Air Transport Association Institute of Travel & Meetings key performance indicators last room availability
management information Meetings Industry Association Meetings Professionals International
OTM online travel management PNR RFP ROI SBT SLA SME TEM TMC
passenger name records request for proposal return on investment self-booking tools
service level agreement
small and/or medium-sized business/es travel and expense management travel management company
8 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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