" Being the best rather than the biggest" . For Stephan Baars, head of BCD Travel, American Express GBT's acquisition of CWT - respectively 1st and 3rd largest business travel agency in Europe, with BCD sandwiched between the two - is not a cause for concern: " They were already the first and that hasn't stopped us from winning customers. On the contrary, this acquisition encourages us to emphasise our differences, namely our strategy of focusing on the customer experience." . This expertise has won over a number of key players in sectors such as shipping, pharmaceuticals and the media, whose specific, cutting-edge requirements have trickled down to BCD's entire customer base.
Another positive aspect of this large-scale acquisition - to which we could add TravelPerk's recent acquisition of the American TMC AmTrav - is that it provides proof that the confidence in the future of TMC. " It is not dying, as was once predicted, given the amount of investment in the sector." says Stephan Baars.
The figures show that demand for business travel has not taken off. The number of transactions recorded by BCD Travel returned to 95% of what they were in 2019. In Europe, they are even 3 pts ahead of the pre-pandemic period. BCD explains this increase not only by the return to favour of business travel, but also by a significant gain in customers during the pandemic, attracted by the advisory role that a travel agency was able to offer them.
Airline transactions are also buoyant, on the rise in the first few months of 2024 compared with 2023, with overall growth of +13%, higher in the Americas (+16%) than in Europe (+6%) and Asia-Pacific (+13%). " The commission model remains the largely dominant model for these transactions. However, we are seeing growing interest in models based on management or subscription fees." says the head of BCD Travel.
Analysed in terms of volume rather than transactions, the Hotels segment also recorded an overall increase of +27 % - +33% for the Americas, +16% in Europe and +12% in APAC - which can certainly be explained by an increase in hotel rates, even if this has tended to slow down in recent months. Stephan Baars also sees this as an expression ofchanging travel habits " with fewer but longer stays, or combining several destinationss ". This is in addition to the group's investment in its Hotels solution, which TMC believes offers one of the most extensive inventories on the market.
At a time when the boundaries between the technological solutions developed by TMCs, GDSs and OBTs are becoming increasingly blurred, BCD has for some time now been offering its customers a range of solutions that are tailored to their needs. multi-source offer. Based on the content of the Sabre and Amadeus GDSs and their NDC connections for air travel, hotel aggregators such as Booking, Expedia, HRS and BCD's own solution, soon to be Trainline for rail travel in the third quarter, this platform is open to the aggregation of external solutions.
In the spirit of Plug & Play, BCD has added the possibility of API connections with around fifty partners in 12 categories, including payment, visas, expense reports and travel approvals. A marketplace from which companies can put together their own tailor-made programmes around a wide choice of services. All of this is underpinned by the various ways of getting in touch with travellers, whether via BCD's travel agents or its TripSource technology solution, third-party online booking tools that can be integrated, such as Cytric or Concur, as well as communications via chat or email.
Automation of expense management and the sales order management system, downloading of invoices: technology is making its presence felt at every level. " This is a dynamic period, with disruptive innovations such as NDC for airline ticket sales or AI, which will significantly change our agents' processes" says Yannis Karmis, Senior Vice President of Product Planning and Development at BCD Travel.
Projects underway this year include around AIBCD is working on the automation of emailings in the event of changes or new bookings, the possibility for travellers to find out about travel policies using chatbots to be integrated into TripSource, as well as Teams and Slack. Artificial intelligence will also be used to reconcile payments for credit card bookings.
A long, quiet river, the march towards AI? The tests carried out last year by BCD on more than 11,000 email exchanges relating to artificial intelligence showed that give rise to a number of errors. For example, out of 530 emails exchanged concerning an invoice, in 3% of cases, the system did not understand that the request was not to send the invoice, but to ask questions about it.
More problematically, out of 488 emails sent concerning a cancellation request, 462 of the bookings were cancelled for good reason. However, in the case of 26 exchanges, the traveller was looking for solutions to find another flight and not for the existing reservation to be cancelled. And yet there was a cancellation. The example of Air Canada, which had to pay 600 euros to a passenger for a wrong answer given by its chatbot - a reduction invented while the traveller was on his way to his grandmother's funeral - is still on people's minds, particularly Yannis Karmis'. Hence his enthusiasm, albeit with a touch of caution, when it comes to integrating the technology.
