According to a European Union recommendation, an SME is defined as a company with fewer than 250 employees. This category includes micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on this definition, there are almost 3 million SMEs in France, making up a dynamic market that business travel service providers are seeking to conquer.
Travel agencies and their suppliers - air and land carriers, vehicle rental companies, hoteliers, payment card specialists and software publishers - are all active in this buoyant niche. The stakes are high, as travel represents the second-largest item of non-production expenditure, after salaries, for exporting SMEs. Some, like Sénidéco (see interview), generate most of their sales outside France. What's more, in these gloomy times, they tend to restrict their travel budgets less than major accounts.
To organise their business trips, SMEs can call on the services of a travel agency, which can either link up with their online booking tool or, alternatively, deal directly with the booking sites set up by carriers or hoteliers. But be careful, the "monosite" will only list the "in-house" offers or those of partners. For example, on a traditional airline website, you won't find any low-cost offers. As soon as you leave the beaten track, these direct solutions often fail," warns Marc Leidelinger, head of the Frequent Fly Travel Paris agency. It's not always easy to change a booking or get a refund.
Generally, if they go through an agency, customers only pay for what they use. Depending on the complexity of the service requested, transaction fees vary between 2 % and 7%, with the average being between 3 % and 5 %. So much for costs. When it comes to savings, dealing with an agency allows you to optimise services and expenses. Many of our prospects are unaware that they can join a particular hotel, car or airline loyalty scheme, or adopt a particular type of payment card that can earn them bonuses," continues Marc Leidelinger. These discounts often cover up to half the annual fees charged by the travel agency". He goes on to mention the free loyalty programmes aimed at SMEs: Voyageur Rewards from Air France, Partnerplusbenefit from Star Alliance or Business flyer in France from the OneWorld airline alliance.
AGENCY BOARD
A network of travel agencies such as CWT (Carlson Wagonlit Travel) is making eyes at both large accounts and SMEs, whose travel budgets do not exceed €250,000 to €300,000 a year, making them the core target of voluntary networks such as As Voyages, Tourcom and Manor. To win them over, these networks highlight their professionalism and their single access portal, offering several applications: online booking, electronic ticketing, monthly statistics on the company's travel budget.
Avexia Voyages, a member of the American Express network, is also active in this niche. This agency is also targeting very small businesses, which spend between €10,000 and €70,000 a year on business travel, with Simply Avexia, a monthly subscription system with a minimum charge of €95 a month. "Instead of paying the agency for each transaction, very small businesses pay us once a month", explains Christophe Derumez, President of Avexia Voyages. In addition, this offer gives access to a range of services: economical door-to-door transport by shared shuttle or private vehicle, reservation of airport parking, restaurants at promotional prices or meeting spaces.
ALL ONLINE
Among the travel agencies targeting the SME-SMI clientele is Air France and its Blue Connect online booking tool dedicated to business customers under distribution contract. In practice, single journeys can be booked online up to 24 hours before departure, and changes can be made before the ticket is issued. After this time, you must go to the Air France agency to make the reservation and issue the ticket. Off-line processing, via the agency, concerns the booking and issuing of complex trips, groups, after-sales processing and made-to-measure services. The Air France agency consolidates on/off line results.
The high-speed rail operators have created the Railteam alliance, bringing together Ice, TGV, Eurostar, Maijet, Thalys and TGV Lyria, which aims to be unbeatable for journeys of between three and four hours. Thanks to this alliance, passengers benefit from the advantages of high-speed rail on a European scale: more than 400 destinations, city-centre to city-centre connections and the "ecomobility" that is so important for sustainable development. Not to mention the comfort of the carriages, the reliability of the trains and the opportunity to make the most of the time on board.
Available in five languages, the www. railteam.eu information portal includes an interactive map of the network, route information and European train timetables. However, to make one or more bookings, Internet users will have to connect to the website of the operator making the journey requested. If, for example, a businessman wants to travel from Brussels to Paris and then from Paris to Geneva, in the absence of a global reservation system he will have to book two separate tickets," explains Béatrice Pâques, Sales and Marketing Director at Thalys. However, there are plans to combine the reservation systems by the end of 2011.
Since journey times between Paris and Amsterdam or Cologne have become shorter, business travellers have tended to prefer the train on these sections. "Before the end of 2010, it will be possible to privatise a four-person lounge in the first carriage of the train so that you can work in complete confidentiality", continues Béatrice Pâques. For companies, Thalys has two types of contract: the first is available from 15,000 euros annual volume on Thalys, with a discount of 5 % on travel in Comfort 1. The second is aimed at companies spending €30,000 a year on Thalys travel and entitles them to differentiated discounts.
LOYALTY BENEFITS
As far as Railteam is concerned, independence reigns when it comes to pricing policy. The reason is quite simple: defining common offers would amount to a price cartel, which is prohibited by competition law. As for SNCF, it launched its business portal in autumn 2008. Comprising a website and a dedicated contact centre, this solution enables users to book, pay for and manage tickets, season tickets and business cards reserved exclusively for business rail travel: TGV, Teoz, Eurostar, Thalys, etc. The contact centre provides advice and assistance to users. In practice, tickets have to be collected from stations or shops, unless they are sent by post. As with all the sites, only certain services for the company or passengers are free of charge. In the hotel market, the integrated chains - in particular Accor, Mariott and Starwood - voluntary chains such as Choice Hotels and central booking agencies are targeting business travellers from SMEs. Especially as these SMEs do not necessarily opt for budget hotels. It all depends on the business sector. For example, consultants, partners and employees of law firms in "high-contribution" sectors are used to frequenting top-of-the-range hotels. A priori, the hotel needs of SMEs and SMIs are quite similar to those of major accounts," says Catherine Agier, Corporate Sales Director at Accor. Proximity to the traveller's meeting place remains the main criterion for choice". Of course, value for money remains an important factor, especially for SMEs whose budgets are often tighter than those of key accounts. An SME exporting to high-risk regions, particularly political ones, or simply to an 'exotic' destination, will tend to accommodate its staff in a standardised chain establishment. Both for quality and safety reasons.
Like other players in the business travel industry, hotel chains are ingenious at winning over and then keeping their SME customers. The greater the volume of business they secure, the bigger the discounts. "Reducing costs without reducing standards" is one of Accor's watchwords, and the company has modulated its online booking offers according to the customer segment targeted and the booking channel used. For example, Pullman Business Packages, Business at Sofitel, Mercure and Novotel are all available on the accorhotels.com portal. As for the Away on business offer, aimed at SMEs booking between 50 and 200 nights online, it can be accessed from the dedicated business portal businesstravel.accorhotels. com. It offers a discount of up to 10 % on the best rate of the day, with no strings attached, across the Group's worldwide portfolio of more than 1,600 Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, All Seasons and Barrière hotels. Accor's recent free A|Club loyalty programme enables travellers to collect points each time they travel and convert them into vouchers at the group's hotels.
PAY AND REIMBURSE
Business centres are not to be outdone. For example, Regus has introduced the Businessworld loyalty scheme, which consists of four cards with varying degrees of discounts for users. "This membership scheme gives SMEs access to the world's largest network of workplaces and the various tools that mobile professionals need to operate productively and profitably.
When it comes to paying for business travel, both AirPlus and American Express offer a packaged card for SMEs. Available for annual expenditure of €50,000 or more, the Compact BNP Paribas AirPlus card comes with a payment period of 28 days from the date of issue of the SME-SMI's monthly statement. The transaction statement includes the standard elements relating to business travel: the traveller, the itinerary, the date, the price and the travel agency. To facilitate clear cost allocation, additional data can be added concerning cost centres, employee identification and services. VAT is shown for information purposes only. The statement also shows the agency fees charged for the transactions concerned. "Whether for employees or external collaborators, such as guests or partners, we offer two types of insurance covering travel services paid for using the Compact card", explains John Baird-Smith, Director of AirPlus International in France. For the Compact card, American Express sets the threshold at 80,000 euros of ticket sales per year. Below this amount, it recommends a corporate card. This group and the other players in the sector - Carte Bleue, Visa, Mastercard - have developed a whole range of cards for SMEs and SMIs, with more or less extensive guarantees. These are real management tools. Publishers of expense report software are also targeting this market. Dimo Gestion, a specialist in expense management with Notilus, has signed a distribution partnership agreement with Avexia Voyages. Etap on line and Carlabella, meanwhile, offer expense claim management software. This is a way of speeding up reimbursements and reducing processing costs. SMEs and SMIs are far from being left behind in the business travel market.
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