AMA Recap: Travel Policies and New Travel Trends

Did you miss our first SAP Concur Community AMA? No worries, watch our recap video (or read the below transcript) in which Ralph Colunga talks about some of the top takeaways from our Travel Policy and New Travel Trends AMA. 

To participate in future AMAs for SAP Concur admins, be sure to join the User Admin Group on SCC.

Kevin Dorsey:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Ask Me Anything: Travel Policies and New Travel Trends recap. My name is Kevin Dorsey, I’m one of the SAP Concur Community Site Managers. I have with me today Ralph Colunga the main star of the AMA to recap some questions we wanted to highlight from our Ask Me Anything event.

Ralph Colunga:

Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for this opportunity, Kevin.

KD:

Yeah, no problem. Happy to have you. So, we're just going to jump right in here. Let's start with somebody had asked:

“Would appreciate any direction you can provide to find detailed explanation of risk measurement guidelines or sources used to determine changes in risk ratings. How they align with the risk ratings, one through five, and how often the destination location ratings are updated.”

RC:

Yep, you know this is largely dependent upon what third party partner the customer utilizes in support of their risk management program, which would include duty of care. Each service provider aligns and sources this a little differently and just as an example, you know here at SAP we have a risk intelligence function that evaluates the geopolitical as well as other targeted risk areas and utilize both global and US intelligence data sources. As well as our service provider, which is international, so we receive information from them and then we're also considering any COVID related information from let’s say the World Health Center. Taking their information as well as our own service providers along the space That is then aligned with our travel safety program who works to communicate and really coordinate with employees. As much as providing them the most up-to-date information that we possibly can, that's pretty much how we handle it.

KD:

All right, great. That was a good question.

RC:

Yeah, it was.

KD:

All right, let's go on to the next one. This one's a little bit longer but I think it's also one that has an acronym I’ve never heard before. But I’m sure you'll explain it in detail:

“What are the plans associated to new distribution capability where the airlines can bundle pricing. For example, for “x” price you get two check bags and wi-fi, or for the “y” price you get one page and preferred seating as examples. All the talk I’ve heard is that it isn't available for travel agencies or programs like Concur Travel, it will force the purchase through the airline direct which is not good for me as a travel manager. It will inhibit our ability to monitor and force policy duty of care.”

By the way that's not me asking that question, I’m rereading one of the questions. I’m not a travel manager but just wanted to clarify that, so I’ll let you go ahead and take that.

RC:

Yeah, you know a new distribution capability is something that is pretty much where the airline industry is heading in terms of wanting to offer different varieties of solutions and services directly with clientele. There's a value proposition to the airlines to go ahead and if you will go business to traveler so to speak. I mean cutting out any type of middlemen in terms of their service offerings.

Now in a nutshell what Concur offers NDC connections through Travel Fusion, to multiple carriers like, the Lufthansa group, United Airlines, and American Airlines. Travel Fusion basically enables Concur users to shop and book hundreds of low-cost carriers that aren't typically in the GDS's or the global distribution systems that are offered out there to provide airline inventory to customers as well as travel agencies. It also enables any direct connect schedule airlines, those offerings are available to customers. Travel Fusion is the leading online travel content aggregator for any direct connect global distribution solutions. It's basically a single platform allowing your business to search, shop, book, merchandise, pay, and really for seamlessly across, I think there's some over 300 airlines as well as 42 NDC direct airlines, but NDC again is pretty much the direction where things are heading now. It is shown in the same integrated display as a GDS offering from other carriers so you can do comparison shopping that does work within the Travel Fusion function in sight. The real issue is whether the airlines are offering enough value to get the TMC or their TMC really to support a non-GDS channel is what it boils down to.

KD:

Okay, wow. Interesting. I can definitely see everything. The issue there with all those bundled packages and then how can we offer that but I’m sure we've been pretty good over the years to try and keep up with trends and what's happening.

RC:

Yeah, Travel Fusion has been in effect for many years, so it's something I think we really are extremely proficient at offering. So, I would strongly recommend they check out Travel Fusion.

KD:

All right, next question here again is coming from one of the questions asked during the AMA.

“How can individual travelers understand the environmental impact of their flights before and after booking? And how do travel managers inform their travelers on how to be sustainable?”

RC:

Yes, certainly. We have seen in the last two years this incredible rise of sustainability to a top-tier level of focus from corporations. One of the most recent studies I was looking at just showed the sheer number of just the last two and a half years an incredible movement of corporations basically moving to accept or push sustainability as part of their company branding. Which is something that we've never seen at least certainly from my standpoint being in this industry over 40 years. We always talked about sustainability, but it was almost looked upon as being accepting. Kind of an acceptable pollution in that, hey we've got to do our business, so therefore we must fly, and therefore, we'll go out and buy some carbon credits. But all of that has really changed because of the pandemic and if there was a silver lining in the pandemic it's really kind of sustainability and duty of care. Those things have been elevated for health and safety reasons as well as you know impacts to the environment with almost no travel over the last two years. You really see the positive effects in terms of it's had on the environment and the awareness that I think is also being generationally driven by I would say millennials and gen z in terms of how important sustainability is to a company program.

Awareness of what the company position is and what the company is asking each employee is key. I would suggest again offering training to help inform employees understand the importance of the actions they can take on an individual level to help make a difference with regards to sustainability. As well as what the company is doing with regards to embracing sustainability efforts and how that's going to be a measure of their success going forward. How really utilizing partner suppliers who embrace sustainability also matters to the company. How using as an example, rail versus flying if it's available as an option how much that can really help with regards to reducing the carbon footprint. Companies also need to make sure that they adjust their policies and procedures. Based upon measuring sustainability results ensure continued progress and greater impact over time and make sure that they're reporting that information back out to their populace, in terms of how the company is doing and with regards to marked progress.

KD:

All right. Yeah, I can see that a lot of the kind of younger generations are more environmentally aware.

RC:

I would agree.

KD:

That is good points you make, and I do think that travel managers are wondering, “How do I get this message out?” Training I know is always a good thing.

RC:

Sure.

KD:

I think probably utilizing the company notes section, on the Concur home screen.

RC:

Absolutely.

KD:

You can put announcements there. Those are just a couple things that come to mind. Great information. Thanks.

All right last question:

“With the growing number of supplier direct booking or SDB how do travel managers take control? How do travel managers deal with the new attitudes of travelers, such as wanting to take direct flights?”

RC:

Yeah. You know this this is a discussion that's been coming up more and more, especially with regards to the amount of I would say a transition and shift in travel programs. Where the travelers want more control or engagement with regards to their travel plans going for the future. We've seen in survey after survey to where the travelers are saying, “Hey look I am willing to travel on behalf of the company, but I’m only willing to travel on my terms because of my health and safety issues, as well as my commitment to sustainability.” Having been a former travel manager for the past 30 plus years and managing several major enterprise companies, I ultimately came to the realization that it's not actually about travel managers quote on quote “taking control”. To me has been really losing venture as I see it and what I mean by that is that almost every program I’ve ever seen you're going to have individuals going supplier direct for a host of reasons.

So, to me ultimately you know how you get control of a program. it's really about transparency and to me, transparency equals compliance. It's about obtaining visibility into all bookings taking place across a travel program. Irrespective of the booking source it really shouldn't matter where it's booked in effect because again for a host of reasons you might very need to have your travelers going supplier direct. So, I don't think SDB’s are necessarily a bad thing in many ways, they are the most cost-effective method for a company and as I said before we live in this age of travel personalization and flexibility of choice for health safety and sustainable reasons. This is only going to continue to grow, and all data points over the last two years is what we're seeing so our trip link solution provides the SDB visibility and feeds all this information back into Concur travel and expense. So, when a traveler book supplier direct and you've got Triplink turned on within your program and I go to United.com those bookings and my corporate rates and discounts are available. Negotiated rates are available within the united landing site or web page. When you book those bookings, they flow back into Concur, so you have that transparency and visibility. You can not only see what type of affairs and booking class that your employees are booking but you can also ensure that information is then passed on to your duty of care service provider etc. it's kind of a back flowing of information. Because that information is passed to your TMC as well as to your duty of care service provider and then again you also have that visibility to see the type of fare that was being utilized by the employees so it's really a win-win situation. To have that that transparency as I talked about within your program.

KD:

All right great. As you were answering I was also thinking of, it's kind of travel related but, I think some companies could then also ask if travel managers are worried about extra spend because they are taking direct flights that usually cost more is, ask the travelers, “do you actually have to make that trip or can you do this meeting on a on a Zoom or Teams? Or online can you meet with the customer or your clients that way?” In some instances if there's worries about costs being too high for the airfares. 

RC:

I think that's something that's a critical point and I this goes back to again when I mentioned that they can be the most cost-effective method. One of the things about booking supplier direct when you look at airlines like Lufthansa or British Airways and or other airlines now moving forward in this direction to say if you're not booking on our travel websites, we're going to charge an extra $15 to $20 per booking. If you're going through a TMC or through another channel versus coming to our website and booking directly in effect you're not paying this fee if you have Triplink enabled basically again with those Triplink partners those bookings are taking place on the airline reservation site are not charging that extra 15 to 20 per ticket and so that's a cost savings back to the company. You're not having to pay your TMC for the fulfillment if you will because it's booked directly with the airlines and that information is again back flowing directly into Concur and invisible for the travel manager as well as your duty care service providers etc. so it really is one of the most cost-effective methods going forward. That's why SDB’s are growing so rapidly because companies are beginning to realize we have one large enterprise customer and they're one of the largest companies in the world who've actually instructed their employees to book directly with Lufthansa on the Lufthansa site because there's that cost savings. Which is actually €16 which is about $20 savings back to the company by booking supplier direct and all those reservations are coming back to the company via Triplink so again it's without a question Triplink is a proven methodology that works without question.

KD:

Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize airlines were doing that. I could kind of see it, like those concert ticket resellers who add all those fees like, oh it's convenient to book on our site. You better look at the total price of the ticket it's 25 higher than what they listed because all these add-on fees because you went through a resale.

RC:

Absolutely and this ties back to NDC which is again new distribution capability. That's where a lot of the airlines are heading because again, they want to go B to T in terms of the transactions which is business to traveler, so the airlines want to deal directly with the travel communities. Again, that's really kind of the wave of the future.

KD:

Great. All right, thank you so much Ralph for all this great information.

RC:

It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much again for the opportunity.

KD:

Absolutely. All right everyone, we appreciate you watching. To see the AMA in its entirety, you can use the SAP Concur Community search and enter, “AMA” then select the article labeled, “(CLOSED) Ask Me Anything (AMA): Travel Policies and New Travel Trends” and there you'll see the entire Ask Me Anything thread. Thanks again for watching.

RC:

Thank you.