2013: Industry Obsesses Over “Open Booking”

If the industry in 2012 continued to claim that travel buyers
weren’t that interested in program alternatives like Concur’s Open Booking
Initiative, by 2013 it would become a much harder argument to make. Managed
travel seemed to be obsessing over the idea that bookings made outside of
approved program channels might offer better value—and it was clear that at least
part of the time they were offering better pricing than a managed program could
negotiate, whether agency rates or directly negotiated.

A few startups were pushing into the managed travel space in
2013 to get at the pricing issue. Tripbam, founded by Steve Reynolds in October
2012 to re-shop corporate hotel bookings for better rates, was winning its
first corporate clients in 2013. Yapta, which did the same for hotel and air
bookings at the time, was beginning to pivot from the consumer space into the corporate
space. Yapta was acquired by Coupa in 2019; Tripbam by Emburse in 2023, after
expanding into hotel rate auditing and flight re-shopping.

So there was a lot of awareness around what travel managers—and,
therefore, their business travelers—were missing when they stayed within the
confines of their programs. Travelers were missing choice and pricing. On the
flip side, the Concur argument went, if travel managers chose to look at ONLY
bookings and data generated through their approved channels, they were also
missing travel volume they should be tracking for their organizations and duty
of care obligations to their business travelers.

The concept which had simmered in 2012 came to a rolling
boil in 2013 when Concur acquired midoffice process and data-oriented companies
GDSX and TRX in July. It would also introduced its more robust TripLink product
(taking the GDSX name), which aimed to create a booking option where travelers
could go direct to the consumer sites of participating suppliers but apply
corporate discounts and have the data captured for program reporting. The
process also accepted via TripIt Pro forwarded trip confirmation emails,
capturing data via optical character recognition technology and adding it to
the data and reporting mix for the client.

The latter process was key since getting suppliers
integrated into the TripLink process was not a piece of cake. TripLink wouldn’t
have its first fully integrated airline until 2017, with United Airlines. American
Airlines wasn’t integrated until 2019. Amtrak announced its integration in 2022.
At that point, Concur had integrated 15 major travel suppliers.

In 2013, however, the concept was enough to consume industry
debate, and it took on a different tenor. In years past it was all about pricing, and there was definitely a pricing concern here. But it was also about the traveler experience; the technology itself was at issue. Was it on par with consumer tech? No, it wasn’t. And was that driving travelers out of the managed channel?

Plus, Concur’s acquisitions of TRX and GDSX seemed to polarizing the industry, which overall began
to recognize the power Concur had consolidated, not just as an expense management
company with a travel booking tool, but now far more embedded in TMC operations—rivaling the power of the GDS and agent desktop. Some TMCs like Gant, like Christopherson saw an
opportunity with “all in” alignment with Concur. Some, like Amtrav and like
Amex GBT which spun off from American Express with a $900 million investment
from Certares largely for technology investment, began to swim against the
strengthening Concur current.

BTN’s pages were filled with rhetoric around Open Booking
and Concur and TMCs becoming a “commodity.” What would it take for them to
reinvent themselves? Why had they not seen the swell gathering?

The following are two excerpts: 1) from a technologist-minded
TMC founder, 2) from travel buyers. A third item is in the sidebar, and it’s
not about Open Booking or Concur. Rather, it’s about enabling the TMC with content
through a new XML data standard called New Distribution Capability. There’s another
storm brewing…

 _____________________________

The TMC Technologist – Excerpts from a 2013 Op-Ed by Amtrav
co-founder Craig Fichtelberg

Amid all the hysteria about open booking and whether or not
it’s justified or media-concocted hoopla, everyone is missing the most
important point. Open booking surfaced because TMCs have been asleep at the
wheel for the last decade. … TMCs have completely abdicated responsibility for
user experience, outsourcing it entirely to third parties. The result is both
inferior booking tools and support levels that have left travelers unsatisfied,
frustrated and yearning for a new alternative.

While consumer products get better, faster and slicker every
year, TMCs—even those with impressive resources at their disposal—have largely
chosen to not concern themselves with the core booking experience. It’s like
all the TMCs got together 10 years ago and agreed online booking technology
would be off-limits; they won’t try to out-innovate each other with respect to
a traveler’s experience online. So as online adoption continues to rise and
TMCs continue to use the same few third-party booking tools, the TMC becomes
more and more of a commodity. As their costs rise with third-party products,
their customer service inevitably falls. Meanwhile, while the TMCs have slept,
a giant has risen to capitalize on the opportunity.

But this giant is not a bigger and better travel company;
instead it is an expense management company that now bills itself as a
“travel and expense” solution and that suddenly has a lot more
control over the traveler’s booking experience than the TMC. The TMCs have
become virtual prisoners of this giant. As the expense company’s domination of
the industry gets more awesome and more enviable every year, TMCs are left to
quietly pray that they won’t one day be deemed expendable and cut out of the
equation altogether.

                               *****

TMCs need to take more ownership of their technology. Since
technology is such a big driver of customer satisfaction, TMCs need to compete
with one another in that arena. … Open booking is not a great new idea but a
solution being offered for a very real problem. Open booking exists because
TMCs dropped the bar so low that an expense company could climb over it and
then dictate the new benchmark for what travel should be. It’s time for travel
companies to take back control, stop living as prisoners and provide a travel
solution that will make business travel easy again. Open booking is plugging a
hole on the Titanic, when TMCs should be building a new ship.

 _____________________________

Buyer’s Table: Does Open Booking Mean We’ve Failed? 

What are your thoughts on how you’re going to adapt to
this new world we’re in?

Valerie Fender (then with Blackboard): I have days
when I’m very pro-open booking, but there are still questions and things we
need to have in place before we can do that. But, it is the new normal. I’ve
had to adjust my entire onboarding strategy. In the old days, when people were
just handed a profile to fill out, the employee would ask the question:
“How am I supposed to take care of travel?” They don’t do that
anymore. The assumption is that they’re just going to book it. We are going to
have to make some adjustments.

Dan Cooper (then with Westinghouse): My experience is
a little different. The agency is very relevant and is known by all, and our
travelers see the value that the agency provides. We have a very strategically
aligned engagement with our agency. They’re onsite. … Our travelers are not
clamoring for booking through multiple lower-cost channels. Rather, they’re
clamoring for continual customer service and support. I may be in the minority,
or soon to be the minority.

Maria Chevalier: I don’t find that the traveling
population has said, “I want to go out and use whatever tool I want.”
They just want better tools and processes. When they’ve grown up in this
consumer world, their expectation is, rightfully so, that they have a similar
experience, and they’re not. As it comes to open access, my concerns are as
follows: One is my ability to ensure my travelers are safe. … The second is my
ability to effectively leverage. One of those leverage points, when we’re in
these negotiations, is my ability to influence the point of sale. If suppliers
know I don’t have that ability, I can guarantee you my rates are going to go up
significantly. The last point is crisis management. When it comes to
information in a crisis, I need to quickly have access to where travelers are.

Steven Mandelbaum (then with The Advisory Board Co.): If we believe, as an industry, that open booking is about choice, and if that
is the answer, then we have failed as an industry. It means the solutions we
have provided to travelers within our corporate programs have just plain
failed. We haven’t given them the technology tools. We haven’t given them the
right content, and we’ve given them a really lousy service experience. We
failed to deliver a good travel experience to them so much so that they are
going to go to competitors, and in some cases, unauthorized competitors.

Given the technology available today, are there
appropriate tools for your travelers that are of high enough quality?

Mandelbaum: Are we where we want to be? No. Do we
provide a good set of tools and services? Yes. You’re going to find on the
margins better features and little, different applications all the time. That’s
going to happen for eternity. If you look on the totality and on the whole,
what type of service am I getting in disruptions? Am I getting good discounts?
Am I going to be able to leverage deals? Am I going to have safety and
security? Then, on the whole, yes, but it’s not ideal. We’re not at the final
state, for sure.

Fender: When you talk about a small to midsize
companies… it’s very different than (large companies’. In terms of me putting
the program at risk of losing a discount because we’re not leveraging
everything, that’s not as compelling an argument. … I don’t know how much
energy we can put into fighting it. I’m more inclined to look for technologies
that will give us visibility of what everybody is doing regardless of where the
source point was. What’s really missing is the benchmark. What can I spend on
this trip? … We have to give them some budgets to work with.

Can the TMCs help you with that research?

Fender: They need to reinvent themselves and look for
opportunities to provide us data and services that we need. When I feel
frustrated is when the conversations with the agencies sound just like the
conversations we had in 1992. Everything is different now. They need to broaden
the scope.

Cooper: An interesting segue is the agency and total
cost of trip. We get a lot of customer service from our agency, but one of the
things that is lacking is that they’re not able to provide that total cost of
trip. We have travelers going off to airline websites to make transactions, and
unfortunately, we have some trouble capturing that total cost of trip. That’s
where I want to see agencies and distribution partners make improvements, so we
can finally capture what a trip costs, from beginning to end.

                                                               *****

Mandelbaum: The great TMC opportunity is upon us. … There
is an opportunity for a TMC that could bring a total solution to the
marketplace that solves the problems, that deals with the technology and the
content. Many TMCs have just cobbled together a lot of technologies. Sometimes
the customer or buyer will bring it to them. Sometimes, (the TMC will) bring it
to the table. But, there is a real opportunity to deal with some of the
open-booking issues, expense issues and reporting issues. Waiting for third
parties to present them solutions that they can integrate may not get them
there very quickly.

Are any TMCs visionaries as you described?

Mandelbaum: No, but when you look at the Egencias of
the world that have their own technology, they definitely have a leg up and
have an opportunity to do something about it. They own much more of the
continuum and have a lot less variability from client to client. Take Apple.
One of the things that Apple has done is close the network. … They’ve done the
research and say you’re going to be 90-percent-plus happy with this, and it’s
going to be way better than the competition. There’s a need for an Apple-like
solution out there. There are still some people here who carry BlackBerrys, and
there’s a use case for it. There are people who want Androids because they want
more control over them. (But) I do think there’s an Apple-like opportunity here
in corporate travel.

That last sentence sounds prescient now, with the closed-system, mobile-first players like Navan and TravelPerk  growing their first green shoots just a couple of years after that round table discussion took place. Today, they collect millions in funding, make massive acquisitions and at least one is prepping to go public. On the other hand, technology-only players looking to dig new technology foundations for TMCs are still out there. Spotnana was one, particularly when it played alone. There’s a question mark on that now it’s intrinsic to DirectTravel, but still providing technology to others. The point is, the fragmentation the industry was grappling with then, is the same fragmentation we are grappling with now. We have some different tech to apply to the challenges now. 

The question is who will make it happen, and will it result in new travel management models? We are still looking for that answer.

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

JANUARY 

Avis Budget announces it will acquire Zipcar for $500 million, and moves to further integrate car-sharing
technology. Plans arise to debut the brand in both consumer and commercial
verticals.  

Southwest says it will introduce no-show fees in 2013 and raise other fees for travelers
holding restricted tickets that are not flown and not canceled by the passenger
prior to the flight.  

Bill Marriott is inducted into the Business Travel Hall of Fame, and predicts a
significant rise in average daily rate and revenue per available room as supply
continues to lag demand after the 2008 and 2009 global economic downturn.  

The Global Business Travel Association warns its
members about possible U.S. corporate tax reforms that could threaten traditional
business deductions, urging vigilance as they advocate for preserving T&E
deductions. 

FEBRUARY 

Sabre denies US Airways’ allegations that it
has threatened to remove the carrier’s content from its GDS. The company files counterclaims that the carrier engages in anti-competitive
practices like collusion. 

American Airlines’ full-content deal with Travelport expires, and the
carrier resumes its antitrust lawsuit against the GDS provider. Both parties
work toward a new agreement as AA wants to keep offering uninterrupted
content access via Travelport GDSs. 

American Express intends to remove 5,400 jobs, which
largely include those in global business travel, due to company restructuring amid changing economics. 

Carlson Wagonlit Travel launches a mobile app for China that incorporates company policies,
domestic booking capabilities, and built-in approvals. 

German travel managers’ association VDR pushes for
changes to more air contract data requirements, after the local government declared thatLufthansa clients will no longer need to hand over corporate card data on bookings with competitor airlines. 

American Airlines grapples with applying corporate discounts to its new fare bundles. The carrier
has teamed up with corporate clients and booking tool suppliers to fix issues
with availability and display. 

American Airlines seeks to add new reporting for its corporate clients. These would include
detailed flight activity like fees paid for seat assignments, checked baggage
and upgrades. 

United Airlines continues to downsize as it cuts over 600 management and admin roles. 

MARCH 

BTN covers the merger of American Airlines and US
Airways, announced February 14; then-US Airways president Scott Kirby identifies “winning back and winning corporate
share” as one of the three critical pillars of the $11 billion deal.  

The European Commission has announced that it will
block Ryanair from purchasing Aer Lingus because of competition concerns. 

Air Canada debuts an international premium economy cabin on Montreal-Paris flights and will
expand this offering to more routes in the future. 

To increase competition, the European Commission suggests deregulating its member states’ national rail networks. At the time, only Sweden and the UK
had fully open markets. 

As it grows its PreCheck trusted-traveler initiative, TSA
looks for commercial solutions to make passing through airport security faster. 

Videoconferencing suppliers are paving the way for business
clients to have wider access to more devices. Electronics firm Harman
International carries out a program to raise the global use of onsite
conference rooms with video equipment to lower meetings costs and redirect spend. 

The state of Oregon and relevant associations sign a
contract with Southwest Airlines for the first airline program that leverages purchasing power from
multiple state governments. 

Carlson Wagonlit Travel files another protest against the U.S. General Services Administration’s
15-year exclusive contract with Concur. Meanwhile, Concur and the
federal government said that CWT’s bid was ineligible. 

Travel technology firm KDS’ new self-booking tool Neo garners favorable reviews from clients like Morpho and
PwC. KDS was bought by Amex GBT in 2016. 

Southwest Airlines opposed subpoenas from American
Airlines in a federal antitrust case, stating that AA wants to steal its distribution strategy. AA argued that the subpoenas would
be subject to confidentiality. 

APRIL 

Coca-Cola takes business travel gamification program to Europe to drive compliance. 

The Global Business Travel Association “elected to
withdraw” an arbitration claim against the Georgia Business
Travel Association, opting instead to put resources into developing a local
chapter membership for Atlanta. 

A U.S. Travel Association survey shows negative
perception of customs and immigration processes, costing the country
billions in would-be inbound business and leisure travel. U.S. Travel
recommends a $150 million investment in 1,000 Customs and Border Protection
agents.  

Concur buys the ConTgo travel messaging app. It will eventually integrate
the technology and morph it into Concur Risk Messaging.  

Marriott collaborates with Ikea to launch the Moxy brand across Europe. Originally envisioned as an
economy brand, Moxy opened as an upper-midscale product.  

Through its Tangent product, Westin plans to add flexible workspaces across 40 properties with
videoconferencing and audiovisual components for hourly bookings.  

Delta Air Lines rolls out a check-in recognition program for corporate travelers. It
pilots the program with 31 large corporate customers. 

JetBlue says it will launch premium seating on transcontinental flights; the move was
among the first the carrier took in its journey to introducing its Mint
product, which rolled out in 2014. AA, Delta and United in the previous 12
months each introduced upgraded services and expanded availability of lie-flat
seating on transcon flights.  

Travelport and American Airlines announce an
agreement that the GDS will connect to AA’s XML-based “Direct Connect” API. Then-AA
managing director Cory Garner told BTN he was confident more GDSs would do the
same. This is a year after IATA has proposed an XML-based concept called
New Distribution Capability. Amadeus signs on for a similar deal in May. 

Corporate Travel Management recently bought
Denver-based Polk Majestic Group, the first among its U.S. acquisitions. In 2021, CTM completed the purchase of Travel & Transport–making them a leader in the U.S.
market. 

MAY 

Then-NetApp travel manager, and former Global Business Travel Association board member, Mark Ziegler and a coalition of “a few dozen” other buyers bring a bylaws change proposal to GBTA that would disband the Allied Leadership Council and ensure all board members are elected. Allied Leadership Council president (an appointed position, which also commands a board seat) Scott Solombrino, who at that time had held the position for four two-year terms, sees the proposal as an attempted ouster. He speaks out on the issue in the July issue of BTN.

JUNE 

American Express Global Business Travel doubles its technology investment to set up a new standardized
point-of-sale solution for agents, enhance its portal for travelers, and
upgrade its voice systems. 

GBTA presents a ballot proposal countering Ziegler’s that would boost supplier board members to seven (up from four) and include seven buyer board members (down from nine). It would require a number of other changes to “equalize” power among buyer and supplier members, according to the board. And, would make it harder for rank-and-file members to propose governance changes.

Rearden Commerce gets rid of 21 positions to focus
resources on the demand for its syndicated commerce offerings. 

GBTA backs off its “Chapter of the Future” initiative that would have required local chapters to
contribute to a new financial model and organizational structure. 

Canadian meetings technology firm Quickmobile secures
C$3.2 million to support the release and further
development of an enterprise app that allows users to create event apps. Cvent buys QuickMobile in 2018. 

New Association of Corporate Travel Executives executive director Greeley Koch informs members that the association has
sustained financial losses and will restructure to cut costs. 

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia form an Open Skies pact, which will allow unrestricted air service
by airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory. It will
remove limits on how often the carriers fly, the type of aircraft they use, and
fees they charge. 

Sabre launches a new service dubbed Custom Offers to help airlines and hotels tailor their
pricing and product offerings and target customers based on their profiles or
shopping requests. 

JULY 

GBTA Allied Leadership Council president Scott Solombrino speaks out about his legacy of volunteerism at GBTA, including his eight-year run as the appointed president of the Allied Leadership Council, which Ziegler’s Proposal B would dismantle if passed. He railed against that idea as “one of the most ridiculous proposals that I have ever seen in my years at GBTA,” and defended the the ALC’s role as well as the board’s push for “membership equality” for Allied members.

BCD Travel acquires Travelocity Business from Sabre,
positioning the online TMC to offer more strategic meeting management,
sourcing, consulting, benchmarking and international travel services. 

Salesforce.com explores a subscription pricing model with BCD Travel to set the stage for servicing off-channel bookings and other program adaptations.

Then-Dominion travel lead Donna Kelliher runs unopposed for the Global Business Travel Association presidency; Johnson Downie business services director Christle Johnson runs unopposed for vice president. Observers wonder if it signals a fall-off in engaged volunteerism for the association.

AUGUST 

Cvent files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission registration statements for an initial public offering of stocks. The papers indicate
annual revenues have grown rapidly in the previous several years from $26.1
million in 2008 to $83.5 million in 2012. The September IPO earns the company
$117 million. 

The power struggle builds around the board structure of the Global
Business Travel Association. Passions and acrimony flared, including personal attacks
that hijacked the focus of the annual convention. The opposing proposals and a third
“no change” option were on the ballet. Ultimately,
the result was “no change.” But the association’s buyer-supplier power balance would be a point of contention for years.

NEC Europe has adopted Concur’s Open Booking approach to let travelers book cheaper flights
via public websites while still capturing the data for company records, as they
face challenges with the cost differences between online fares and those
offered through their booking tool. 

Kurt Knackstedt is named president of the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives. Then based in Singapore, he was the first ACTE
president from the Asia/Pacific region. 

BTN editorial director since The Beat acquisition in
2011 Jay
Campbell departed the publication; Chris
Davis advances to editor in chief.  

The European Commission threatens to end its
controversial U.S. Passenger Name Record deal because of government
surveillance allegations. 

Airfare track-and-rebook technology Yapta pivots to
corporate travel, but integrating the Fare IQ product into the managed travel air ticketing process is challenging. Ultramar announces plans to offer the service to all clients, citing good results with
pilot clients, despite reductions in the TMC’s GDS incentives due to extra
searches and “hits.” 

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration announces plans to expand PreCheck program eligibility to five years, for an $85 fee.
 

Hospitality executives pinpoint Europe as the next big market for branded midprice and economy hotels. Brands
like Best Western and Choice lean heavily into development, while
new Marriott brand Moxy was originally intended as an economy brand for
Europe, but later changed course. 

Marriott plans to offer mobile check-in throughout 325 hotels in the U.S. and
Canada. 

The European Commission’s proposal to cap interchange fees for consumer card transactions at 0.3
percent could lead to indirect consequences for corporate payments, like less
attractive consumer card perks and potential surcharges or reduced rebates for
corporate cards. 

GDS provider Amadeus develops Total Travel Record, a centralized system to aggregate
traditional passenger name record (PNR) data and non-GDS data, to create a more
comprehensive, open environment for travel agencies and airline customers. 

Concur has bought travel management companiesTRX and GDSX.
With these acquisitions, the company expands its suite of services and works to
become the main technology provider for certain TMCs.  

SEPTEMBER 

Delta Air Lines adds frequencies in each direction
between Los Angeles and San Francisco establishing the Delta Shuttle for the West Coast, with 14 hourly flights
served by Delta Connection carrier Compass Airlines.  

Wall Street analysts have mixed views on the outcome of the U.S.
Department of Justice’s lawsuit to block the American Airlines and US
Airwaysmerger, with predictions ranging from a 30 percent chance
of the airlines winning in court to a 50/50 chance of the merger closing. 

A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed a 27 percent increase in misconduct cases among TSA officers from fiscal years 2010
to 2012, with the most common offenses being absenteeism, security infractions,
and failure to follow procedures, but few employees were terminated. 

Hickory Global Partners adds automated hotel shopping toolTripBam as a preferred
technology partner.  

Adelman Travel agrees to resellConcur Risk Management. It is the first
company in North America to deploy the risk offering built on the ConTgo
platform Concur acquired in March. 

Hitlon Worldwide introduces an online portal called
Connect for booking and managing meetings. 

The Active Network, which owns meetings management
provider StarCite, forms a committee of its board of directors to
review potential investments or acquisition offers.  

After Concur’s TripLink and KDS’ Maverick, Sabre approaches the market with TruTrip to capture non-GDS bookings by leveraging TripCase,
GetThere and Sabre Red agency desktop. 

Short’s Travel Management acquires ProcureApp, the technology that powers KDS Maverick,
and claims “exclusive rights” to power its own FindIt application. 

Payvia offers phone-carrier billing as a secure and convenient
alternative to credit card payments. The company says it has been particularly
successful with underbanked populations. 

Payment provider CSI makes its way into the corporate
travel sector with GlobalVCard, a virtual card that one can use to centrally
pay for business expenses like airfare, hotel stays and car rentals. 

OCTOBER 

American Express and an investor group led by Certares announce plans to move American Express Global Business Travel into a joint venture structure. GBT would keep the Amex name. Amex
would retain 50 percent ownership, while Certares would commit $700 million to
$1 billion for the other 50 percent. The deal is signed in March 2014; the PE investment is $900 million. 

Vista Equity Partners agrees to acquireThe Active Network, ending Active’s tenure
as a publicly held company.  

The U.S. Department of Transportation tentatively
approved an antitrust-immune joint venture between Delta Air Lines and Virgin
Atlantic, deciding that the alliance will promote competition. 

The U.S. General Services Administration awarded CWT a portion of its second-generation E-Gov Travel Service contract after a court-ordered reevaluation of the initial
exclusive award to Concur, letting both companies compete for federal
travel management task orders. 

Security services firm International SOS encounters a
cyber attack on its traveler-tracking system. 

Traxo bags a $4.2 million Series A investment from Advantage Capital Partners. The company
announced an integration with SAP’s Cloud for Travel ‘open booking’ system in
the previous months. 

Gant Travel Management establishes a new open-booking
tool called TripFuz to manage trips outside traditional channels,
alongside a new hotel program with Expedia Affiliate Network, in its strategy
to boost its services and become the leading TMC for Concur Travel and Expense
users. 

NOVEMBER 

The European Commission proposes to include in its emissions trading system greenhouse gases emitted within EU
regional airspace from all international flights, effective Jan. 1, 2014. The
United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization agrees to develop the plan. 

Crowne Plaza lays the groundwork to offer free hotel Wi-Fi to all guests in 2014. 

Both sides claim victory as DOJ, AA-US Airways settle merger
suit 

American Airlines and US Airways have reached
a settlement with the DOJ to allow their merger, which would require slot divestitures at seven U.S.
airports. 

TravelpoolEurope, a consortium managing travel and
expenses for 31 companies, has built a new data tool for reduced pricing on airfare classes not
usually discounted. The tool shows carriers how much business they can gain by
lowering fares or adjusting eligibility rules on existing classes. 

Fed up with JFK Entry Delays, Delta Foots bill for automated
passport tech 

Delta bemoans long wait times for international
passengers at New York’s JFK Airport and funds 40 automated passport control machines to address the issue. 

Concur and its partner travel management companies
remain aggressive in expanding their investments in open booking. 

Microsoft works on an Outlook-based trip planning
tool that includes predictive modeling to anticipate travelers’ preferred
flights.  

The Active Network launches the Smart Events Cloud, a cloud-based solution that integrates
its strategic meetings management and event marketing functions, with full
availability expected by mid-2014. 

Egencia creates the TripNavigator mobile app that offers real-time trip alerts,
a contextual itinerary view, and global “click-to-call” access to
Egencia call centers. Added features are planned for Q1 2014. 

IATA’s NDC pilots, involving airlines like American Airlines, Air
New Zealand, and Swiss International Air Lines, focus on testing various
booking and ancillary sales scenarios. Pilot programs for Air Canada and
nuTravel are expected to launch in December. During this time, corporate travel
agencies had yet to participate. 

Hotel booking specialist HRS inks a multiyear deal
with Sabre to distribute independent hotels through Sabre’s GDS. 

DECEMBER 

Etihad Airways takes a one-third equity stake in Swiss-based Darwin Airline and will
operate cobranded flights under the “Etihad Regional” brand, starting
with Abu Dhabi-Zurich service on June 1, 2014, with Zurich joining Geneva as a
main hub. 

Citibank travel manager Mick Lee launches WinIt: Women in
Travel with the support of the Clinton Global Initiative and numerous travel
industry leaders. She is named among BTN’s Most Influential people in business
travel the
following year.

SilverRail Technologies has acquired Jeppesen’s
Integrated Public Transport Information System to build an industry-first platform for planning and booking complex
rail trips, that aims to bring air-like search and booking to the rail
industry. 

Lufthansa’s choices to end codeshare agreements and
limit loyalty program reciprocity with Turkish Airlines could mean
rising competition between the two carriers for corporate business. Some travel managers cite that Turkish
Airlines has more preferable terms and is willing to negotiate separately from
the rest of the Star Alliance. 

At the IATA World Passenger Symposium, various
business travel agencies evaluate New Distribution Capability. They discuss its necessity,
benefits, and the lingering mistrust in the distribution chain, rather than
issues related to data privacy or anonymous shopping. 

_______________________________________________________________________ 

Elizabeth West is the editorial director of the
BTN Group. She has reported on the business travel and meetings industries for
24 years. Beth was editor-in-chief of Meeting News from 2006 to 2008 and
director of content solutions for ProMedia Travel from 2008 to 2011, when
ProMedia was acquired by Northstar Travel Media and merged with BTN. She became
editor-in-chief of BTN in 2015 and editorial director of the BTN Group in
2019. 

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