TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

What are the major challenges facing French travel managers? How are they responding? Are new avenues for optimisation emerging? These are just some of the questions to which CWT's first Perspectives France 2019 survey provides quantified answers, backed up by recommendations from CWT Solutions Group experts. Voyages d'Affaires brings you the initial findings.

Travel Leaders Group is going international, with a network that will soon cover 80 countries. In France, the Marietton Group (Havas, Ailleurs Business) will benefit from the network's strength. Interview with its Managing Director, Arnaud Fontanille.

The rise of the collaborative economy is forcing companies to adapt. The new generations are seeking to regain a degree of autonomy from travel policies by using platforms such as Airbnb or Uber for both their travel and their private lives. It's a mix of genres with the potential to generate savings.

Travel Leaders Group, a US-based TMC, is setting out to conquer the global market. Its managers have just unveiled an expansion phase based on a partnership with some forty travel agencies, including in France.

A recent report by Horwath HTL analyses the evolution of the hotel industry in Singapore. The average price is set to fall once again as almost 1,500 rooms come onto the market.

On 9 April, Notilus formalised a partnership with CDS Groupe, guaranteeing users of its solution access to the vast catalogue offered by the "business hotel marketplace".

Anthropologist and director of qualitative research, Laurence Rudeau was invited by American Express GBT to attend EVP 2019. This was an opportunity to take a "distant look" at the culture of business travel, and the relationship between professionals and their travel and the company's travel policy.

London and New York remain the most popular business destinations, according to the Cities & Trends 2018 report published on 26 March by BCD Travel. Paris remains in the European top 5, even overtaking Zurich.

On 20 March, Yorick Charveriat presented the results of the EVP 2019 barometer. The Sales Director of American Express GBT discusses the findings of this European survey, and the business travel agency's strategy in general.

At the 28th EVP, held in Paris on Wednesday, American Express GBT unveiled the results of its European Business Travel Barometer.

BCD Travel has published a study devoted to the well-being of business travellers, and above all to the concrete measures taken within companies. The gap between good intentions and good practice is striking.

The boom in urban tourism, soaring oil prices, the fall in the euro and political uncertainties are likely to have a negative impact on price trends for business travel. This is the finding of a survey published by MICE industry technology provider Cvent.

Traveldoo took advantage of the Business Travel Show to unveil a new interface, incorporating features such as character recognition (OCR) and, soon, the NDC standard. Stéphane Donders, CEO of Traveldoo, takes a look at the latest news from the technology publisher, and shares his vision of the business travel market.

With the new "Egencia Hotel Conversations" feature, the corporate travel agency aims to facilitate direct communication between business travellers and their hotel, to increase personalisation and responsiveness. Egencia is also launching new features for duty of care and packaged reservations.

Character recognition, NDC integration, user-friendliness: Traveldoo is giving its booking solution (OBT) and its expense claim management tool (T&E) a major makeover. The new interface will be presented at the Business Travel Show in London.

A la carte revenues" - or ancillary fees - marketed by airlines generated $65 billion in 2018 according to CarTrawler and IdeaWorksCompany. European carriers are the greediest.

Since 18 February, the Carlson Wagonlit Travel business travel agency has been officially renamed CWT: three letters with which business travellers and travel managers have already had time to familiarise themselves.

Following on from its first coworking space in Paris, Deskopolitan will be opening a new facility in the spring, combining workspaces with a host of services including a hotel residence, crèche, sports club and bistro restaurant... Talk to its co-founder.

Artificial intelligence, blockchain, chatbots: new technologies are everywhere... except perhaps on travel managers' roadmaps, according to a study published by the Business Travel Show.

Following the publication on 7 February of an interview with Pierre Blin, Senior Director, Program Management, CWT France, the Snepat-FO union wanted to give its version of the facts.