Justice Dept. Delays Air Antitrust Decision
06.22.2009 - When the U.S. Department of Transportation in early April tentatively granted antitrust immunity to Star Alliance members United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada and incoming member Continental Airlines, the carriers expected DOT to meet its May 31 deadline for a final decision. Now, the Department of Justice, at the behest of several Senate Judiciary Committee members, is effectively postponing the final decision in asking DOT to await a joint review on transatlantic aviation competition by European Commission and U.S. authorities.
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TSA Eyes Secure Flight Clarity
06.22.2009 - The Transportation Security Administration this month clarified aspects of the Secure Flight program, noting that names on boarding passes do not have to exactly match those on government-issued photo IDs, in an attempt to overturn some misperceptions about the program.
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Inside Track: Rearden Offering Amtrak Content Via Wandrian
06.22.2009 - Rearden Commerce late last month on its Personal Assistant online booking platform began providing Amtrak content through an application programming interface connection via rail IT services provider Wandrian. Rearden claims to be the first online booking tool with such a connection to Amtrak, which can be booked online at its own Web site or through other self-booking tools via all global distribution systems.
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Newsmaker: CWT Taps Amex's Winterton
06.22.2009 - Travel management company Carlson Wagonlit Travel this month announced the appointment of longtime American Express distribution and supplier relations executive Andrew Winterton to the newly created post of president of suppliers, products and technology.
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Extended Stay Tiers Push Growth As Corp. Demand Drops
06.22.2009 - Extended stay hotel companies, facing occupancy and rate declines less steep than those seen in the overall hotel industry, continue to pursue aggressive growth plans for both their established and newly introduced extended stay brands.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Green Efforts Prep Co. To Focus On Cutting Cost
06.22.2009 - Spurred by a companywide initiative to cut carbon emissions by 15 percent by 2012, software company Symantec reduced travel by 15 percent year-over-year after installing Hewlett-Packard Halo remote conferencing technology in September 2007.
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Hotel CEOs: Softness Holds, Rebound Later
06.22.2009 - Chief executives from such major multibrand hotel companies as Accor, Choice and Starwood this month said corporate hotel rates recently negotiated downward are unlikely to increase anytime soon, and that they expect travel program cost-saving measures to remain long after the economy recovers, but they also expressed confidence that group and transient business travel ultimately would bounce back.
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GetThere, Seeking Further Rail Content, To Add Eurostar
06.22.2009 - Corporate clients of the GetThere online booking tool next month will be able to make reservations on cross-channel rail service Eurostar. The launch follows a series of pilots with customers since March. Precise timing of the availability of Eurostar will vary, based on the global distribution system used by clients' appointed travel management company.
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More Hotel Vets Join Dolce, Accelerating Its Development
06.22.2009 - Dolce Hotels and Resorts last month continued its evolution from a pure conference center chain with the hirings of former Wyndham Hotels executive Peter Strebel as chief revenue officer, responsible for sales, marketing and North American development, and former Omni Hotels executive Richard Maxfield as chief operating officer. Business Travel News executive managing editor Chris Davis this month sat down with Strebel and Maxfield at an event celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Dolce Basking Ridge's $8 million renovation.
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New Prototypes Squeeze More Rooms Into Embassy, La Quinta
06.22.2009 - Two established hotel brands, Embassy Suites and La Quinta, last month launched new design prototypes that cater to business travelers and allow designers to fit more rooms into a single hotel property.
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BA To Pull Gatwick's Last NY Route, Push Premium Cabins
06.22.2009 - British Airways is pulling its Gatwick-New York route, the last remaining service from London's second airport to the Big Apple, because of disappointing premium traffic, yet corporate clients have reaffirmed their support for the forthcoming launch of New York service from London City Airport, head of U.K. and Ireland sales Richard Tams said.
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Travelex, MasterCard Launch Prepaid International Card
06.22.2009 - Foreign exchange and international payments supplier Travelex has launched a prepaid card product with MasterCard processing capabilities that it says will allow corporations to gain savings and enact controls around international travel and entertainment spending.
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Oneworld Alliance Ups European Small Business Sales
06.22.2009 - The Oneworld airline alliance enjoyed a significant increase in sales of its Businessflyer fares for small European businesses last year, but remains blocked from negotiating meaningful deals for larger corporations by lack of antitrust immunity.
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Op-Ed: Babbitt Can Help FAA To Push NextGen Forward
06.22.2009 - Airline passengers should be heartened that the U.S. Senate last month confirmed the appointment of Randy Babbitt to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Babbitt will bring much-needed leadership to the FAA as its role is critical in moving forward key projects that benefit travelers, particularly the Next Generation Air Transportation System air traffic control modernization initiative.
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Op-Ed: Now Is The Time To Get Serious About Mandates
06.22.2009 - In countless meetings over the past two decades plus, I've heard the same disappointing response to questions about travel policy enforcement. No matter how logical a best practice in travel management may seem, the refrain of "we don't mandate" or "we're not a mandate culture" basically means "we don't manage travel" or "we don't really manage travel."
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Year Of Change Ushers In Uncertainty
06.01.2009 - Last year, our assessment in this space was, "Dire circumstances have created an environment that demands change." We had no idea at that time of the extent of the changes that lay ahead.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Agencies Face Transaction Drops
06.01.2009 - As the recession took hold in 2008, travel management companies found themselves on rocky footing, battling the effects of stark transaction and sales volume drops that accelerated throughout the year. Last year also saw agencies responding to vigorous account activity as corporations looked to optimize financial arrangements, speed TMC implementation times and receive more timely and accurate data and reporting.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: U.S. Airlines Swap Fuel Prices For Demand Crisis
06.01.2009 - U.S. airlines ended 2008 in a much smaller and less profitable industry than the one that they entered, dropping about 9 percent of capacity, watching seven smaller airlines liquidate, shedding nearly 28,000 full-time jobs and approaching $20 billion in net losses.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: IATA Sees Billions In Losses Last Year, This Year
06.01.2009 - When International Air Transport Association director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani gave a global airline industry forecast in April, the outlook was nothing but grim. "Air transport is in a crisis," he said, after which he detailed the litany of woes facing the business: billions of losses in 2008, battered premium traffic, freefalling revenues and an estimated $4.7 billion in losses this year.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Car Rental Firms At Crossroads As Demand Lags
06.01.2009 - Damaged not only by a global economic recession and sharply reduced demand but also by the crippling financial maladies of the Big Three U.S. automakers, the rental car industry finds itself at a crossroads in 2009. Competition for remaining business is fierce, and a decimated resale market is leaving the rental companies with lots of cars to rent, but fewer corporate travelers to rent them.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Chauffeured Cos. Face Perception, Demand Crisis
06.01.2009 - Chauffeured transportation companies began 2008 with just the initial whiffs of concern about a slowing economy and softening corporate demand. They ended the year in the worst crisis the industry has ever faced, watching financial services companies that proved some of their best corporate customers evaporate, seeing other clients all but consider their product radioactive and facing the prospect of hundreds of millions of revenue dollars disappearing.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Payment Vendors Push Consolidation, Globalization
06.01.2009 - Payment issuers and networks, faced with contracting volumes of travel and entertainment spending, are advocating global growth, better compliance and spending consolidation as a way to forestall expected volume declines this year.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: American Express Makes Strategic Card Plays
06.01.2009 - American Express in 2008 made several strategic investments and partnerships that further bolstered its standing as the world's largest corporate card provider and expanded its distribution network by acquiring GE Money's Corporate Payment Services, purchasing an equity stake in Concur and launching a new partnership with Carlson Wagonlit Travel.
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2009 Business Travel Survey: Buyers Gain Sway As Hotel Seller's Market Halts
06.01.2009 - Analysts warned that the seller's market that had dominated the lodging industry for several years would ebb in 2008, but none predicted the sharp U-turn the industry took, leaving buyers in an unexpectedly strong negotiating position amid falling rates, revenues and occupancies.
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BTN's 2009 Business Travel Survey: PDFs, Charts For BTNonline Subscribers
06.01.2009 - BTNonline subscribers may download the 2009 Business Travel Survey in its entirety as a PDF, including all charts, supplier rankings and analysis, by clicking here. Individual sections are available for download below.
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BTN's 2009 Business Travel Survey: David Meyer on CPN Radio
06.01.2009 - BTN editor-in-chief David Meyer stopped by Nielsen Business Media's Commercial Property News' CPN Radio to discuss the June 8 Business Travel Survey Issue with CPN editor-in-chief Sue Silverman. Listen to the audio clip here.
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Swine Flu, TARP Response Sidetrack NBTA's Lobbying Efforts
05.11.2009 - When the National Business Travel Association set its government affairs agenda at the beginning of 2009, the usual crop of topics dominated the list: Federal Aviation Administration funding, Transportation Security Administration issues and U.S. entry policies. However, a swirl of rhetoric and regulation in Washington is posing challenges to the corporate travel industry—from travel guidelines for companies receiving funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program to the more recent round of rhetoric regarding travel in the time of swine flu—and have taken center stage in the association's lobbying efforts.
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China Eases TMC Restrictions
05.11.2009 - Chinese tourism and travel agency regulatory authorities this month lifted some restrictions on foreign ownership, capital startup investment and outbound bookings, making it possible for foreign travel management companies to own more than 51 percent of a Chinese travel agency and open local branches.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Parexel Parlays Policy, Practices Into Compliance
05.11.2009 - Rapidly expanding biopharmaceutical services provider Parexel International's procurement-driven travel program globalization has helped create considerable savings by applying new metrics to shifting traveler behavior, using a best-in-market supplier approach, moving to a lodge card in some of its largest markets and building a companywide travel council to aid in the change management process for 9,250 employees.
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BCD's Van Vlissingen Stays Aggressive Despite Downturn
05.11.2009 - BCD Travel has bolstered its balance sheet with a $50 million cash infusion from parent company BCD Holdings and is making strategic investments to ready itself for a business travel recovery and support the long-term viability of the company.
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First-Ever Egencia Earnings Show Softness As Remy Departs
05.11.2009 - Egencia this month announced that president Jean-Pierre Remy would leave the travel management company to become CEO of a large European firm outside of the travel industry, effective May 15. Egencia North America senior vice president Rob Greyber will fill the post.
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Inside Track: Sabre Strikes Lufthansa Content Deal, Adds Opt-In
05.11.2009 - Sabre and Lufthansa this month announced a four-year global distribution agreement, effective July 1, extending an arrangement reached in May 2008 and set to expire June 30, through which Sabre subscribers were shielded from the carrier's Preferred Fares surcharge. Sabre said protection from the €4.90 surcharge comes at the expense of a €1 per-segment Efficiency Plus opt-in fee for GDS subscribers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
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Accor Links Res System To Both Travelport GDSs
05.11.2009 - Travelport GDS and Accor last month globally launched a single XML connection between the hotel company's central reservation system and the global distribution firm's Galileo and Worldspan entities. Accor is the first hotel company to adopt the new connection, helping to pave the way for Travelport's evolving hotel distribution strategy, which eventually will include selling a la carte hotel services through the GDS.
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Databasics Debuts Mileage-Audit Tool
05.11.2009 - Expense reporting software tool supplier Databasics recently announced new capabilities to assist corporations in reporting and reimbursement for mileage. Databasics now has an automatic mileage calculation tool as a part of its hosted expense reporting service. Integrating technology by AOL/MapQuest, the tool checks mileage reimbursement claims with objectively determined distances to ensure mileage claims are accurate, according to the company.
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Newsmaker: Choice Taps Marriott Exec
05.11.2009 - Michael Murphy, a former Marriott International executive, this month began work heading global sales and intermediary marketing efforts at Choice Hotels International.
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Business Jet Demand Takes A Drubbing
05.11.2009 - Facing declines in demand brought on by the recession and persistent perceptions of excess, U.S. business jet traffic has posted significant year-over-year reductions, according to figures published last month by the Aviation Research Group/U.S.
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After Dire Q1, Hotel Analysts See Steeper '09 Decline
05.11.2009 - First-quarter performance by multibrand hotel companies underscored the deep difficulties the industry is facing, particularly in upper-tier hotels, as analysts continue to move 2009 expectations downward.
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Hilton, Hyatt Vets Join Mtgs. Third Party ConferenceDirect
05.11.2009 - Two longtime hotel executives who oversaw group business have jumped to join third-party meetings firm ConferenceDirect. Dave Scypinski, who previously served as senior vice president of industry relations at Starwood for eight years—after serving in various roles at Hilton for more than two decades—and Fred Shea, former vice president of sales at Hyatt, who joined the company more than 30 years ago, recently talked with Rayna Katz, executive editor of BTN sister publication MeetingNews.
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Economy, Backlash Rock Overseas Mtg. Demand, Triggering Deals
05.11.2009 - The economic slump and recent backlash against corporate events have taken their toll on U.S. outbound meetings and incentive travel. Some international planners are pursuing meetings business outside of planning, while industry experts urge planners to leverage deals now for future meetings abroad.
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New York's Javits Center Again Tries Growth, This Time Smaller
05.11.2009 - After suffering a major setback 15 months ago when its ambitious expansion plan was scrapped, New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center may yet again get new exhibit space, as well as major renovations and repairs.
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BTN's Silver Anniversary: Top of the Top 25s
05.11.2009 - Business Travel News has rung in each of the past 25 years by recognizing the 25 business and government executives whose decisions held the greatest sway over the business travel industry in the previous year. A total of 385 people have been so honored in the past quarter-century, many more than once, 29 of them at least four times. Detailing the influence of those 29 executives paints a picture of an industry that has changed in countless measures since 1984, from globalization to automation to consolidation. These are the executives who propelled that change.
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BTN's Silver Anniversary: Travel Managers of the Year, 1984-2009
05.11.2009 - Every year, Business Travel News names the corporate travel buyer who in the previous year did the most to elevate the profession, either by raising the bar in at least one industry practice or exerting influence throughout the industry. Read about the accomplishments of all 24 Travel Managers of the Year here.
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BTN's Silver Anniversary: Buyers Eye 25 Years Of Business Travel And Beyond
05.11.2009 - To help reflect on the lessons of the past, the challenges of the present and the possibilities for the future of business travel management, in this milestone moment during which we commemorate 25 years of Business Travel News, we gathered three former BTN Travel Managers of the Year—Colleen Guhin, Dominion's Donna Kelliher and Partnership Travel Consulting's Andrew Menkes—and BDO Seidman's Cynthia Gillen, the current president of the Chicago Business Travel Association.
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Op-Ed: Social Networking Carries Travel Venting And Privacy Risks
05.11.2009 - Exchanging information and ideas has never been easier or faster. There is a lot of narcissism on the Web. It's fashionable, if not irresistible, to go public on travel experiences. Social networking can add richer content to assist in travel logistics, but there are some as yet undefined risks for commenters, commentees and companies.
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Airlines, Tech Cos. To Test Tracking Of Unbundled Purchases
04.20.2009 - Airlines and technology providers this summer plan to start testing new technology that would serve as the underlying framework for airlines to provide expenditure reports and settlement for ancillary and unbundled purchases.
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Booking Tools Move To Fees
04.20.2009 - GetThere's move last month to bundle its demand management application suite and assess a per-user profile fee on top of transaction fees has raised some travel buyer eyebrows as online booking tools move further away from the straight transaction model, creating potential for higher online booking service costs.
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Inside Track: Amadeus Still At Odds With Lufthansa Over GDS Fee
04.20.2009 - Amadeus has yet to come to terms with Lufthansa to shield its subscribers from the Preferred Fares Program surcharge, and stands to lose "significant" marketshare in Germany as a result.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Co. Uses Travel Emissions Tool As Green Blueprint
04.20.2009 - Design and engineering software company Autodesk in the past 18 months has implemented a comprehensive sustainability strategy for its business operations, already surpassing its initial goal of reducing travel-related greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in three years.
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Amex To Enable Holds Of Online Mtg. Reservations
04.20.2009 - American Express Business Travel this month said it negotiated with hotels and meeting venues the capability to reserve meeting space and rooms online without completing the purchase as part of an exclusive agreement with meetings technology company Worktopia.
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Corporate Housing Providers Shed Inventory
04.20.2009 - Corporate housing inventory dropped by 5.7 percent in 2008 while rates increased slightly but behind the rest of the lodging industry, according to the 2009 Corporate Housing Industry Report, a joint effort of The Highland Group and the Corporate Housing Providers Association.
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