In the digital dark ages, employees who needed to book a business trip would either call a travel agent or fill out a company form with their itinerary and wait for an envelope to show up on their desk with their tickets and other documents.  

The process might have required several phone calls back and forth — say, to check a seat assignment or request a nonsmoking room, or perhaps modify a single-city trip to include a sales call in a second city.

But just as technology has revolutionized the way leisure travel is booked and sold, it is just as significantly changing the way corporate travelers make airline reservations, book hotel rooms and arrange for car rentals. Although some organizations still rely on paper forms and phone calls for most of their travel planning, a growing number of businesses, large and small, are adopting online tools to automate the process and cut costs.

BRAINSTORM – 15 Point Someone

Corporate to Answer:

1. Which costs are the first to be cut?
2. Do corporate travel and meetings have a major impact on your company’s bottom line?
3. What methods do you currently use to save on travel costs?
4. Do you feel you have time-consuming travel booking process?
5. Do you feel there is a failure to comply with corporate travel regulations?
6. Is there a high cost of processing manual transactions?
7. Do you feel your company has complex processes from Booking, Ticketing, Point & Cash transaction fulfillment, financial reconciliation, reporting?
8. Do point transactions (redemption, void) & Cash charges to track and manage are answered well?
9. Do you have various kinds of databases and accounting systems?
10. Do you suffer Long booking and approval cycles?
11. Do you foresee risk of process non-compliance?
12. Do you have reduced profitability due to travel expenses?
13. Do you want to ensure the accounting systems are kept up-to-date?
14. Are you able to track all financial transactions (Point and Cash)?
15. Are you able to know in Real-time the Cash-Balance?

Travel Agents to Answer:

1. Track reservations from a “customer stand point”
2. Is the ticket issued on time for the customer to travel?
3. Is the payment in Points and Cash calculated correctly?
4. When a client cancelled a trip, how was it done?  

11. Track counselor performance
12. Know in Real-time the amount of reservations made by each office

Business travel has become the second largest corporate cost and increasingly corporate travel managers are being pushed to control and reduce it. The use of effective Corporate Self Booking Tool and Travel Management solution appears to be an effective way towards this end. Present Study and this white paper addresses above research questions.

Technological development such as the proliferation of the intranet and the e-commerce has also had an impact on the Corporate Travel Booking Process. Price Transparency has increased the bargaining power of the customer and new online intermediaries such as Expedia Corporate Travel and many Business Travel Management companies developed applications and have high presence in this segment. Similarly GDS companies have developed there own corporate booking solutions such as Highwire (Galileo), Corporate Res (Saber), and Trip Manager (World Span). Thus the need today is a effective comprehensive web based corporate booking tool which take advantage of the special business fares and at the same time provide control to track saving and prevent abuses.

PRESENT PRACTICE –

Basic Modules in Corporate Self Booking Tool are –

1. Traveler’s IBE Module
2. Corporate Admin Module
3. Super Admin Module (Travel Agency Admin)

1. Traveler’s IBE Module –

Corporate Traveler can make use of the below functionality while using the Corporate Self Booking Tool.

1. Quick Search – Flight / Hotel / Car / Holidays
2. Plan / Payment / Confirmation / PNR Display
3. Multi Cities Search
4. Insurance
5. Visa
6. My Trips
7. Corporate Dashboard Service
8. Travel Policy
9. Traveler Profile
10. Change Password
11. Travel Value Tips
12. Traveler’s Checklist
13. Jet Lag
14. Baggage
15. Value Tools
16. Aircraft Info
17. Airport Info
18. City Info
19. Currency Converter
20. Frequent Flyer
21. Health Info
22. Maps
23. Passport Visa
24. Travel Advisory
25. Weather
26. World Holiday
27. World Time
28. Travel Agencies News View
29. Super Saver Deals
30. Change Password / Reset Password
31. Multilingual
32. MIS & Reports

2. Corporate Admin

Corporate Admin is the login account for the corporate admin who can make changes / edit and add information to the application at the organization level. Traveler in the Corporate can be registered; Traveler’s Details, Fund Details, Booking Details, Corporate Departments and Projects Management, and MIS can be done by this module of the Corporate Self Booking Tool.

3. Super Admin ( Travel Agent)

Travel Agent can also login the application as a super admin profile and can set up various settings as per the corporate needs and travel policy. Below is the list of the functionality which Super admin can perform.

1. Corporate Registration
2. Corporate Fee Set Up
3. Preferred Airline
4. Blocked Airlines
5. Fund Management
6. IATA Commission
7. Corporate Discount
8. Reports & MIS

FUTURE PROMISE

Advanced Corporate Self Booking Tool should have features like 

1. Comprehensive, Internet based, self-booking
2. Allows travelers to make worldwide air, car and hotel reservations, as well as obtain passport and visa requirements and travel advisories
3. Displays travel options based on the profiles stored in the system
4. Highlights preferred vendors through tailored displays
5. Provides live seat maps that enable travelers to view where co-workers are sitting and to select their own seats (this option can be disabled for certain travelers)
6. Allows travelers to store past trips for easy repeat booking
7. Personalized service
8. Efficiency and speed in booking travel
9. Accuracy in fares quotation
10. Timely ticket delivery
11. Easy to follow business process
12. Comprehensive management reports
13. Quickly create/update personal profiles
14. View flight availability (look before your book)
15. Obtain travel cost estimates
16. Print travel itineraries
17. Review airline seating via a seat map and view coworker seat selections
18. Tools has links to travel regulations, per diem information, maps, etc
19. Create, Review, Modify and Cancel bookings directly with the supplier.
20. Real-Time connectivity with suppliers and up to minute availability and pricing.
21. A fully integrated B-2-B booking solution with one integrated database for customer management.
22. Reporting and fulfillment tools provide for payment tracking.
23. Automated daily sales reports.
24. Automated Reminders for payments due and booking expiration.

The only constant is change.  This is especially true in the travel industry, and the corporate market in specific. General concerns about the economy have restricted corporate travel budgets, major airlines, once industry titans, are now reorganizing under bankruptcy protection.  Conference calls and Web conferences are up, business travel is down, travel agencies, once operating on commission and fees now see those profit sources shrinking.  Service and support are key to the travel management value proposition, but now more than ever, price can be the determinant factor.  Everyone wants the lowest price – for every product – every time. 

Corporate online booking tool can achieve benefit from doing so can summarize the key to their success in three simple words – Adoption, Adoption, and Adoption!

Adoption rate is calculated as the number of actual online transactions divided by the number of transactions eligible to be booked online

The introduction of an advanced comprehensive online booking tool is not a panacea that will immediately lower costs, improve efficiency and enhance traveler satisfaction.   Features and benefits of a corporate online booking tool alone are not compelling reasons for the majority of corporate travelers to amend behavior.  A reliable, intuitive and easy-use-use product is a necessary element of effective adoption. 

Key drivers of adoption include a more diverse offering of eligible travel transactions such as international itineraries, refunds, cancellations and ticket exchanges combined with tangible cost savings that are evident to the corporation.   As with any change management objective, an implementation strategy that is cross-organizational, involves all stakeholders and provides for incentives for participation is a key to realizing a compelling return on investment.  The ultimate goal of an effective adoption strategy is to create a culture of self sufficiency where travelers instinctively navigate to their booking tool when planning travel as opposed to reaching for the telephone. 

SUGGESTION - ADVANCED FEATURES IN CORPORATE BOOKING TOOL

During the study of the present Corporate Self Booking Tool, I came across many features and functionality which can be added to the present system to make it more comprehensive and all inclusive. Below are the few of them which can be researched and can be supplement to the present system –

1. UPCOMING TRIPS

The 'Upcoming Trips' can be used to display all current trips, booked online or with a Travel consultant.

The 'Status' column can indicates the current status of a trip (e.g. Confirmed, Sending trip to agency, etc.)

The Trip Actions menu will enables a user to View Itinerary, Email Itinerary, View Request, Create Template, Share Trip, Clone Trip, Pre-Ticketing Change (add car or hotel) and Pre-Ticketing Cancel.

2. ARRANGING TRAVEL FOR OTHERS

This feature can be used to book for another user. All what is needed is that arrangers will need to have the correct permissions assigned to book for other users.

3. MY TEMPLATES

A ‘Trip Template’ is a record of your trip that you can use at a later date to make travel reservations for the same trip and travel cities speeding up the reservation process. Tool will use your pre-defined details to book your trip. Selection of a trip can be done from the list of Personal Travel Templates or Company Travel Templates

4. TRIPS ON HOLD

'Hold Trip' will hold a trip within tool until the last ticketing date (this will vary depending on fare selected).

Trips on hold must be purchased before the last ticket date; otherwise the trip will be cancelled.

5. Linking Online Travel Booking and Meetings Management

Help corporate meeting attendees a way to plan and book travel. This will provide quick and easy way to coordinate travel plans with their next corporate meeting.

Thus integrating travel booking with meetings management platform is a key advanced feature in driving a more strategic approach for making a corporate booking tool.

6. Other Advanced Features

• Save time and reduce errors with PNR finishing to ensure all bookings contain the requisite reporting and documentation fields for mid and back office

• Hotel Mapping, allowing your travelers to quickly get their bearings and effectively plan their movements and activities in an unfamiliar city

• Meetings Integration to broaden your service offering and increase revenues

• Comprehensive Reporting to ensure you and your travelers are getting most from the tool

• Two-Way Profile Synchronization ensures traveler profile and host data are in sync for the most accurate traveler data

• More effectively track travel spends to get the most out of the trips taken.

• Automates traveler adherence to corporate policies, supplier agreements enforced and the corporation saves money

• Travelers are guided to the best choice for their itineraries, staying within budget and moving business toward preferred suppliers

• Travelers are empowered to create the itinerary that makes the most sense for them like better service overall, less time spent managing travel and easy-to-use interface takes the mystery out of booking travel

• User should have broadest choice lowest price most reliable simplest to use best customer service

• Project Management and Performance Measurement

• Corporation Executive Support or Endorsement

• Multiple User Interfaces/Flexibility

• Company & Individual Templates

• Create & manage company search parameters for air travel

• Compare user search to company preferred search

• Alert traveler to lower fares provided by company benchmark search

• User views flights based on own search & benchmark search

• Company Benchmarking

• Coordinator Functionality

• Note to Agent

• Preview Seats

Conclusion

Every business trip begins with booking travel and ends when all expenses are reimbursed. And those expenses can add up, representing a typical organization’s second largest controllable expense. So it is essential to manage entire business travel process within one seamless on-demand service. More and more organizations around the globe are looking for a seamless solution to do just that. They are looking for tools which help companies streamline all aspects of their travel and entertainment spends. Companies are looking for providers who offer a travel and expense service in comprehensive manner. Thus a Corporate Self Booking Tool should delivers a world-class travel booking experience with access to the broadest selection of content and a user-friendly interface that encourages adoption and helps enforce specific travel policies. All the data captured during booking and throughout the business trip should flow directly into the expense reporting process, which means organization has more visibility into employee spend then ever before.

Thus formalizing the strategy to success for Corporate is –

Ø       Best customer fit for the tool

Ø       Appropriate positioning of online booking tool

Ø       Project Management and Performance Measurement

Ø       Comprehensive Deployment and Adoption strategy

Author - Ashish Kumar Gupta

Business Analyst – Pre Sales

Travel Business Solution Group

InterGlobe Technologies Limited