As travel giants circle, understanding the economics in tours and activities is vital

In the past 24 months, the tours and activities sector has moved from, to borrow a Cinderella analogy, the cinders to the palace, where its untapped potential has moved into the sights of major travel retailers and investors. These retailers and investors, as we know, included Booking Holdings, Tripadvisor and SoftBank via their investments in Klook and GetYourGuide. These moves have led to lots of opportunities for operators and consumers alike, but, as always, change does not come without its casualties. Some operators are to dealing with distributors and they understand that such partners can be both partner and competitor.

Spotlight

Priceline

At Priceline, part of Booking Holdings, Inc. [NASDAQ: BKNG], we believe every trip is a big deal to our customers. Whether it’s a much-needed getaway, wedding, reunion, graduation, or rooting on a favorite team—those are the moments that nobody should miss out on. Our mission? Be the best travel dealmakers in the world. We provide our customers with smart and easy ways to access the very best deals available on hotel rooms, flights, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises, so they can be there for the moments that matter the most to them.

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Hospitality Management

How Incorporating Corporate Travel and Expense Management Can Help CMOs to Succeed?

Article | June 29, 2023

Corporate travel and expense management is one of the cumbersome challenges for CMOs. Travel expenses are the second-highest expense and one of the toughest to control. Getting the best price for a business out of bookings is not enough for a CMO to manage travel expenses. Instead, there are other challenging factors that challenge a company. What are these challenges? Brief information on it can help you identify what your company needs to fix upon to understand this. Lack of data collection No proper visibility into corporate travel spend Lack of an organized corporate travel and expense management process Proper policies Lack of inventory-rich management system No accountability to services under corporate travel and expense policy Lack of technology usage Lack of flexibility Lack of a stable plan for create travel management strategy Advanced corporate travel and expense management is one of the best solutions today to curb these challenges. So, how can corporate travel and expense management help CMOs succeed in business? Before finding it, a glimpse at the management’s ability and efficiency can help you understand more about it. Corporate Travel and Expense Management: What Do You Need to Know? Corporate travel and expense management today has become advanced after the pandemic hit. Today, it is integrated with cutting-edge features through software and is used for mobile and desktop applications. The applications such as spend control & reporting, quick and easy booking, automated expense & reimbursement solutions with receipt capture, back up analytics capabilities, live credit card feeds, and customizable real-time reports are included. All these are powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. While many CMOs agree that strategizing corporate travel and expense management is helpful to save costs. They emphasize this because their companies have already practiced advanced corporate travel and expense management. Other corporate expense management companies also implemented corporate travel and expense management. And they recommend incorporating advanced management to curb expenses. If you face challenges in organizing corporate expense systems, this is the right article to learn how to cope with challenges. Corporate Travel and Expense Management: How should you go about it? Corporate travel and expense management are set to soar up to $1.7 trillion by 2022 globally, right after the travel companies started investing. This indicates the right time for you to start strategizing corporate travel management and its expenses by following practical steps. Consider Technology-based Solutions Cloud-based corporate travel expense software can simplify your corporate travel management and travel-related expense policies. It leads the entire expense management process to a higher degree of competence. The automation of the corporate travel management process also makes employees easy to file expenses on time. For example, TripActions is a leading corporate expense management company. It provides top software solutions for corporate travel and expense management. The company promotes technology and offer solutions that come with ease of use. No Paper Checks Modern corporate travel and expense management saves ample time by eliminating paper checks. Paper checks make the process tiresome, and there are high chances of error. It also leaves space for employee fraud, which results in tracing difficulty. Thus, paperless work reduces the chances of data tampering and save over-pricing possibilities. Your business can be profitable if you inculcate corporate travel expense software. You can find a list of top software online. Incorporating modern corporate travel and expense management solutions can curb expenses. Practicing the best practices for travel expense management can generate higher revenue for your company. Set an Accountable Plan on Reimbursement The reimbursement processes can turn easy with modern corporate travel expense management. The management can help to set an accountable plan and give access to a list of reimbursements. In this way, employees can claim the existing reimbursements in one go. Following this practice for travel expense management can organize all travel and expense management services in one place. And you will never encounter any corporate travel management challenges in the future. Offer Flexibility Employees are the happiest when they have freedom in their work and workflow. And because of this, you need to include a broad travel inventory. Modern corporate travel and expense management offers an inventory-rich system that allows various options to check employees' booking flights, accommodation, or car rentals. For example, Expensify provides a clear insight into the entire trip's actual cost to corporate travelers. Other corporate business travel management companies also implemented advanced corporate travel and expense management systems. And they are shaping the travel industry like other industries. Choose the Right Software In this, you need to choose the right corporate travel expense software for your business expense management. A corporate travel and expense management software includes features to manage corporate travel and expense policy, organize travel and expense management services, create a proper travel management strategy, manage corporate travel programs, and sets corporate travel management trips. Often, it appears impossible to organize trips that change. Corporate business travel management can help ease your employees’ load. Similarly, corporate travel and expense management software offers other features, such as: It allows corporate travel managers to keep a proper view of employees traveling on a particular day Budget tracking and travel policy tools through apps help simplify the process of business expense claims for employees as well as the finance team Automated receipt submission reminders help employees to submit the reports on time Ratings of travel and expense management services include car rentals, airfare, lodgings, and accommodation Instant price comparisons 24/7 on the go support for managing a corporate travel program and expense management Self-booking of business trips with the help of the travel booking management software Seamless corporate travel expense reporting Search about Software Compatibility When including automation, you need to research corporate travel expense software's compatibility. When you consult a vendor online or in-person and understand software flexibility for travel bookings and transportation services, you can easily select according to your business requirements. By doing so, you tend to save a lot of time and deploy corporate expense systems faster. Consider Setting up a Budget for Corporate Travel and Expense Management For a company, the budget plays a pivotal role before setting up a new system. Questions like what kind of corporate travel and expense management solution you wish to invest in should also be considered if you want your company to succeed. Incorporating a corporate travel and expense management system involves a series of processes such as setup, installation, support, and customization. Thus, choosing the right software or tool is a crucial matter that compliments all budgetary solutions. Set up a budget, research which software can be beneficial to you, and incorporate it to exercise fast processes of your travel and expense management services. Tips to Create a Successful Corporate Travel and Expense Management While there are several solutions to corporate travel and expense management and you understood how to implement it, some tips can also lead you to be successful in business by introducing advanced travel and expense management services, corporate travel and expense policy, corporate expense systems, travel and expense management resources and more. Therefore, for this, you need to: Educate employees and help them understand the technological aspects of advanced best practices for travel expense management Set cost-saving strategies with the help of research on what other corporate expense management companies are implementing Be resilient and open to suggestions from your employees Consider integrating travel management strategies with an automated travel & expense management system. In this way, your company’s corporate travel and expense management will continue to function efficiently. As travel industry leaders are changing their strategies to stand out in 2021, it is time to end fretting over manual corporate travel expenses difficulties. With the help of a dedicated corporate travel management strategy, you can succeed in achieving the goals you set for the New Year in your company. Frequently Asked Questions What is Travel and Expense (T&E) Management? To understand corporate travel and expense management, a few features are explained below: Tracking of reports Reporting Costs management Submission of receipts Reimbursement Clearing expenses Management of corporate travel Pricing List of services How to manage travel expenses in corporate? To manage travel expense under a corporate travel and expense management system requires the following things: Keep track of details Submit expense report on time Plan ahead Organize data with details Choose a suitable tool or software Create a fast workflow How to manage corporate travel and expense budget? Some careful planning and thorough research on selecting the right tools or software can easily manage corporate travel and expense budget. With this, a business can get a closer insight into the planning of the budget, which results in building of a dignified corporate travel and expense management. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{ "@type": "Question", "name": "What is Travel and Expense (T&E) Management?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "To understand corporate travel and expense management, a few features are explained below: Tracking of reports Reporting Costs management Submission of receipts Reimbursement Clearing expenses Management of corporate travel Pricing List of services" } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "How to manage travel expenses in corporate?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "To manage travel expense under a corporate travel and expense management system requires the following things: Keep track of details Submit expense report on time Plan ahead Organize data with details Choose a suitable tool or software Create a fast workflow" } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "How to manage corporate travel and expense budget?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Some careful planning and thorough research on selecting the right tools or software can easily manage corporate travel and expense budget. With this, a business can get a closer insight into the planning of the budget, which results in building of a dignified corporate travel and expense management." } }] }

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Hospitality Management

Business Turnaround Expert Cites Keys to a COVID-19 Comeback

Article | June 20, 2023

The September 11th attacks. The Great Recession. The COVID-19 pandemic. All three of these seismic and tragic events have resulted in heartbreak to humanity, including loss of life and our emotional well-being both individually and collectively. Of course, accompanying these global crises were monetary meltdowns reminiscent of the Great Depression that commenced in 1929 and lingered until the late 1930s. After a “relatively” calm 70 years, the United States economy has suffered three devastating developments inside the last two decades, alone. There have been wars fought throughout the world and inflation escalations along the way, to be sure, but the start to the 21st century has suffered escalating and unusually concentrated economic calamities some that have profoundly altered the very fabric of our lives, both personally and professionally. Indeed, on the business front, such periods have been among the most perhaps the unequivocal most trying of times. Amid current circumstances as the coronavirus rages on around the globe, I recently connected with internationally-renowned business restructuring executive James “Jim” Martin, founder of ACM Capital Partners with offices in Charlotte, Denver and Miami. Having spent the last three decades leading international middle-market companies through periods of distress and transition to actualize stability and growth, Martin is uniquely well-positioned to share insights on how business can rally to best assure a “COVID comeback.” Here’s what he had to say. MK: First, before addressing the current coronavirus situation, what can you tell us about how you’ve helped companies navigate previous “rough waters”? JM: Relative to the September 11th attacks back in 2001, I’ll share a representative example of a strategic pivot that didn’t just help a company survive, but actually drove profit. After that horrendous event, I stepped in to assist a large aviation maintenance repair-and-overhaul facility whose revenue had been cut fully in half immediately following the attacks the result of many carriers permanently parking older aircraft (including the 727 fleet). The sizable challenge presented was to maintain a 1000-person labor force while allowing the industry the necessary time to recover. To do so, we created a captive subcontracting company to which we transferred one-third of our labor force. During our troughs, we contracted this labor to our competitors and, during peak periods, we utilized this labor for ourselves. Thus, not only were we able to retain our skilled, well-oriented labor force during the recovery, but that very staff actually provided additional, supplemental profit. The end result was that we sold the business for $138 million, which provided our new investors with a 33 percent internal rate of return (IRR). Less than a decade after 9/11, amid The Great Recession in 2008, I entered another industry that proved to be among the most brutalized by a global economic downturn: automotive supply. My client was a key supplier to the “Big 3” U.S. auto manufacturers. At the start of 2008, the industry forecast was the production of 18 million vehicles in North America. Come summer, however, it was clear the automakers would not come near reaching that forecast due to the financial crisis. This did not come as a complete surprise to us, though, because amid our firm’s protocols we had had already fully immersed ourselves in our client’s industry and employed forecasting tools alerting us of trends ... this one in the wrong direction. So, we were privy to the situation well before management and others within the industry. By late June 2008, we instituted cost-cutting maneuvers and furloughs that enabled the company to withstand the industry’s brutal second half of ’08 that would result in two of the “Big 3” automakers filing for Chapter 11. Despite the industry producing less than half—as much as eight million—of its original vehicle-production forecast, our client not only survived, but ultimately grew and prospered. MK: Turning attentions to COVID-19, what do you feel is integral for businesses to survive and recover? JM: For businesses to recover from the coronavirus shutdown, it’s going to take a two-pronged approach: both financial and human capital. Starting with the financial, it will be a “loan-ly” world for those not well-versed in the intricacies of SBA, PPP and other “economic disaster” lending. Consider how expeditiously those programs were rolled out. Then consider how even more quickly they were scooped up. Did anyone really read those loan documents in full, or even halfway through, initially or even to this day? My guess is at least half of the companies receiving COVID-related loans took a very “CliffsNotes” approach to these agreements. The result is there’s a solid chance funds were used incorrectly, which is going to make a lot of the loans, shall we say, less “forgivable.” For example, if your company’s payroll roster is shorter today than it was pre-virus, the portion of the loans forgiven is likely to be less. And while your mind may rush to claiming ignorance and throwing yourself upon the mercy of the government to which you already pay taxes, realize that third-party capital is likely to participate in this market through securitization. This means that thousands of SBA loans could be bought, then packaged to be sold to the secondary market, at a discounted rate, no less. If this happens, understand that the purchasers will have the full intention of holding their borrowers (i.e. small business owners) to paying back 100 cents on the dollar. So, those companies who received loans and are required, but unable, to pay them back in full may be exposed to either foreclosure or, worse, a “loan to own” scenario. In other words, much like the agreement that comes with your big-tech user agreements, like those prompting users to “click agree,” the fine print matters. What this means to recovery is that, once again, cash is king: gather it; preserve it; cease lines of credit; liquidate what you can; negotiate costs down with suppliers. And if your company had a healthy bottom line pre-COVID, than a professional familiar with these trenches can help you look to refinance or bring in equity. With all of that said, the key to a COVID-19 recovery is going to be adhering to the rules of a lender’s road, as well as the ability to navigate the red tape when you veer off that road. If you have read all the fine print and properly managed your loan, congratulations! You’ve acquired some really cheap capital. For those who didn’t do their research, however, this road to recovery likely will need some paving. MK: What about the human capital you mentioned? JM: Yes, and then we arrive at the human capital. Lots of companies today are excessively top-heavy. Remember the part about removing emotions from this process? Companies that quickly recognize cuts need to be made will be better positioned to recover than those who dawdle. Again, compiling and preserving cash is going to best position a business for recovery. This is an instance where it’s especially beneficial to know when to pull triggers (best if earlier than others) and to make decisions that are not based on emotions a tall order for many CEOs, which is why many turn to turnaround experts. However it’s undertaken, what’s certain is that reducing human capital is painful, but it is also often necessary and almost always beneficial. The upside is that, when the virus no longer exits, businesses can already be well-positioned for a fairly quick recovery. Maybe not v-shaped sans a vaccine, but quick relatively speaking due to the downturn having been so specific to one singular causing factor. MK: Tell us a bit about your role as and general value of a turnaround expert when turmoil strikes a business. JM: During times of difficulty, owners and executives can greatly benefit from specialized knowledge that’ll help them best navigate those unchartered waters that are often entangled in a lot of red tape. So, turnaround experts bring to the table a litany of tried-and-true “been there, weathered that” experience and expertise. There’s simply no substitute for engaging with a partner whose entire mandate is ensuring your company’s survival and success during some of the most grim and challenging times it might experience those professionals who are willing to spend sleepless nights figuring out how to ensure the company meets payroll; who’ll work around the clock to keep the company’s doors open; and who can tackle challenges without being hindered by emotions that understandably weigh on a business owner or manager. It takes this kind of specialized expertise, experience and grit to lead companies through periods of distress and transition, to stability and growth. No stranger to corporate chaos, during Martin’s own three decades as a globally-regarded turnaround expert, he has reportedly created and restored nearly $1.5 billion in value to lower middle-market companies; raised an additional $1 billion in capital; and managed mergers and acquisitions in excess of $500 million all collectively representing his company restructuring portfolio valuation in excess of $3 billion. Today, as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on business operations far and wide, take heed that there are various key strategic and creative tactics that can help businesses not only weather the storm, but even emerge stronger and more financially secure on the other side.

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Hospitality Management

Hotel Operations Software: Increase Revenue and Strengthen CX

Article | July 18, 2023

Hospitality professionals from all over the world are relying on hotel operations software to optimize their standard procedures. In a survey by Duetto, a hospitality application supplier, 77.6% of 210 industry professionals said they planned to increase their spending on hotel technology in the next three years. “Tech adoption in hotels has been increasingly accelerating as hotels seek greater efficiencies in both front and back of the house, It’s promising to see that more industry leaders are focusing on tech adoption, tech upgrades, and creating an integrated tech stack.” -David Woolenberg, CEO, Duetto The increasing traveler demand for automated services is fuelling the widespread deployment of technology in the travel industry. What Does Hotel Operations Software Do? Hotel operations software or a property management system eases daily tasks like prioritizing hotel room cleaning for early arrivals and automates operations such as housekeeping, front desk, reporting, POS systems, and more. Let us take a look at the features of hotel operations software that make it an indispensable technology solution for hoteliers: Provides Ease of Access A single dashboard for all operations lets team members collaborate without errors. Cloud-based hotel operations software can be accessed 24/7. Allows Unlimited Users Unlimited users can access the platform at no additional cost. New hotel staff can easily use the software. Integrates Major Channel ManagersSeamless integration of the software with major channels lets hotels manage their inventory in real-time, so no double-booking issues arise. Records and Analyzes Guest DataCloud-based hotel operations software securely gathers guest data, records preferences, and predicts and analyzes guest behavior to help hotels elevate their customer experience. Offers Data Security and Payment Gateway Secure card payments and the choice to integrate payment gateways make it easy for hotels to accept payments through methods modern travelers prefer and frequently use. Integrates With Other Applications Third-party integrations with other applications like Global Distribution System (GDS) connect, TripAdvisor connects, and Booking Suite can help hotels manage their sales and operations. Creates Detailed Reports The software creates detailed reports and audits of departments like housekeeping, POS, accounts, etc., that give deep insights on how to increase revenue. Growing Revenue with Hotel Operations Software Hotel operations software minimizes operational expenses and adds value to the service offered to the guests. Automating time-consuming processes alleviates the pressure on employees and reduces labor costs. Here are other ways in which hoteliers can grow their revenue using the software: Entice tech-savvy and modern travelers Increase rate level utilization Improve internal communication Cut down on unnecessary expenses Retain customers through outstanding CX Manage hotel sales efficiently Anticipate demands and address them Reduce the cost of third-party bookings Cross-sell services in owned hotels A Success Story Myrtle Beach Seaside Resorts optimized their revenue and loyalty at seven of their mixed-use condo hotels with Maestro PMS, a centralized hotel operations management system. “Maestro PMS hotel software manages all our properties and maximizes revenue on one centralized system,” -Helen Staton, Director of Reservations and Revenue Management for Myrtle Beach Seaside Resorts. Summing It Up Hoteliers must enthusiastically adopt technology like hotel operations software to enhance guest experience and aid revenue growth through streamlined, error-free, automated operational processes.

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How Corporate Travel and Expense Management Is Evolving Post-pandemic

Article | December 3, 2020

The travel industry is getting back to business, and demand has skyrocketed for travel technologies that make interactions possible between companies and corporate travelers. A recent Gartner survey reveals how 2020 affected CFOs with their corporate travel and expense management tasks globally. How will finance teams report and forecast expenses? How can corporate travel costs be managed? How to manage travel expense management processes effortlessly? Does this sound familiar to you? These were a few valid questions that kept companies engaged in finding answers during the pandemic. Many finance leaders want to implement proper corporate travel and expense management services and find solutions to bring consistency and clarity to their financial processes. While switching from manual processes to automated management systems can be difficult post-pandemic, with an efficient travel and expense management tool or software, your company can gain optimum benefits and stay productive in the future. This article will show you how it evolved through the coronavirus phase efficiently. Adoption of T&E Management Process for Seamless Work Experience An American Express survey found that 55% of the chief executives and senior financial managers ranked rising travel and expense costs as a top concern during the peak pandemic phase. Digital transformation of your processes is a critical strategy for spend management, and it ensures that employees are using the right product to get the best value. By adopting an efficient travel and expense management tool, your company can gain stellar benefits for your finance team to cater varied requirements, and keep a rigorous control over corporate travel spend. Before looking into how travel expense management processes are evolving post-pandemic, here are the benefits and value travel and expense management solutions offer. Also, this will further facilitate your finance team to manage the current corporate travel scenario effectively. Benefits of Travel and Expense Management Solutions The travel and expense management didn’t disappear during the pandemic. Instead, it accelerated its core value. The idea of integrating travel and expense management services with the help of big data in the travel industry is to leverage best practices for travel expense management that can help analyze and extract key information to diverse corporate travel finance functions. Travel industry leaders who are integrating effective travel expense management services in their corporate travel system have experienced the following benefits: Automatic processes of expenditure Data-driven decisions are smarter Time-saving mechanism Simplifies budgeting Ability to forecast more accurately Delivers better user experience Quick access to integrated data from expenditures Gain deep data visibility Higher rate of compliance with corporate policies in finance These significant upticks will benefit your company and will simultaneously improve your corporate travel policies. Understanding these benefits will help you identify how travel technology can help your company manage complex financial tasks that arose during the pandemic. According to a Gartner survey, a travel expense management system is essential as a key solution to manage the corporate travel economy. Any company, big or small, needs to control its expenditure to recover during the pandemic. Complex Forms of T&E Management Are Gone Legacy processes may get a job done, but they are more time consuming, error-prone, and do not provide visibility into travel spend. And when your travel and expense management process is slow and cumbersome, it can slow down the growth trajectory of your business. Corporate travel and expense management automation and its associated features like corporate travel policy, quick and easy booking, automated expense and reimbursement solutions, live credit card feeds, backup analytics capabilities, and more have taken precedence post-pandemic. These services offer more visibility into the travel spend of your employees. With top travel and expense management solutions, your finance teams can monitor and control costs and expenses in the long run. While many corporate travelers have started researching and organizing trips online, you need to add value to financial services by adopting automated travel and expense management solutions that work effortlessly. Core Focus Areas of Travel and Expense Management The post-pandemic era has seen a lot of companies embracing new and updated travel and expense management solutions to drive cost savings, and enable finance teams to have a better control over their road warriors. Here are some: Contactless Data Record Is the next Big Thing Travel and expense management systems allow employees to record all corporate travel bills and receipts through mobile apps and create expense reports immediately. Big data in the travel industry has played a significant role during the pandemic. Technology leaders have already experienced the benefits of travel and expense management. For example, TripActions’ travel and expense management platform uses data to learn about business travelers’ preferences, and predicts within 30 seconds what travelers are going to book with 90% accuracy. The advantage of big data to travel and expense management has already organized several effortless finance processes for corporate travelers to experience seamless budgets. Automation Is Crucial Integrating travel and expense management solutions could easily add to the unimaginable overheads that companies are experiencing. Automation is one of these solutions. Its integration in the travel and expense management system will give rise to a paperless world that will facilitate finance functions to build an audit trail. With this, it also ensures total compliance to keep the organization and its process fast. Agile Technology Is the Enabler Critically for the travel industry, agile technology has allowed multiple methodologies for incremental development in corporate travels, which has transformed the processes from rigid to flexible. The agile process in corporate travel and expense management allows analyzing tangible results on expense. The approach also provides the potential to change plans according to the requirements. For example, Lola.com, the agile travel management company is helping corporate travelers book, re-book, and take the task of expense reports off the table easily. Finance teams arrange travel policies in minutes and equally manage, control, and view expenditure effortlessly. In short, agile technology is making it much easier for travelers and companies all round. To address the use of agile technology in travel and expense management, Jeanne Hopkins, former CMO at Lola.com, the agile travel management company shares “Finance teams at Lola.com have tried managing, controlling, and got visibility into expenditures efficiently by implementing travel and expense management. Small and mid-sized businesses have to be fast and dynamic in the changing scenario of travel, so that actions like booking, re-booking, and managing corporate travel could be performed with efficiency and results in high productivity.” A Hassle-free Expense Management System Expense has been one common challenge with corporate travel programs. Integrating travel and expense management in your company can eventually introduce you to a hassle-free work solution. As the process involves collecting receipts from multiple sources, either from hotels, flights, or car rentals, travel and expense management solutions make it easier for a manager to look at all corporate travel costs at once. Also, in terms of future travel spend and potential savings, the capability of this management remains exceptional. Modern travel and expense management solutions also include self-service, real time, and easy navigation. For example, for travelers, Lola.com has a large inventory of flights and hotels that allow users to avoid going to various sites to compare fares, and save preferences, loyalty programs, and provides payment options in one place. Traveler profiles are automatically stored so that users can book with one click. The 24/7 support team then ensures easy booking and re-booking for its users without any delay. End-to-End Integration Is the New Order of Workforce End-to-end integrated systems in your company will help your finance team implement best practices for travel expense management. This will make it easier for your employees to initiate, approve, and pay each transaction out of hundreds within minutes, thereby creating a seamless task without any manual involvement. Travel and Expense Management Trends When you automate your travel and expense process, it will not only maximize your returns but, at the same time, it will minimize your spending. This will save you both time and money. Below are the reasons you will want to consider making a switch to automate from a manual process. Remove Guess Work from Expense Process For finance personnel in your company, the new travel and expense management system can be set up in five minutes. One of the travel and expense management tools, like Expensify, helps with easy expense tracking and reporting. Similar to this, SpendCatcher – a mobile application of MobileXpense.com that is infused with AI and deep machine learning extracts payment information with just one tap. Supplier-direct Bookings Companies whose employees use a corporate travel and expense management system can receive reports according to department, employee, direct travel supplier, hotel, or car rental company. This information helps managers analyze spending patterns by actively monitoring it with up-to-date information in one flow from various travel suppliers. In this case, Concur TripLink connects to corporate travelers for direct bookings across the borders. It gives visibility of bookings no matter where it is booked. True Visibility into Spending The corporate travel and expense report management system automatically flags and creates analyses of dashboards highlight hidden expenditure. This can be helpful to know: How much expenditure is going in personal corporate travel cards, and why Find expense categories easily Find out why expense is falling short and ask for details In this context, MasterCard International is rapidly approaching towards a smart, web-based expense management system to control spending, generate comprehensive spending reports, and accurately integrate purchase data. Thus, delivering business efficiently, quickly, and easily. Rise of Bleisure Travel Corporate travel and expense management also includes ‘bleisure travel’ for corporate travelers, those looking to combine business travel with leisure time. With agile travel and expense management tools, you can make quick changes in plans to keep your employees and finance team happy and productive while mapping the budget. In this case, Lola.com has made travel and expense management real by providing an effortless way to manage, book, and report on business plus leisure travel, by encouraging its employers to save most of their time and money. Travel technology offers a deserving platform with travel and expense management to companies for added efficiency and visibility over travel spend. As corporate travel businesses are returning rapidly towards their regular work scenarios, the travel industry will see a rise in revenue. Travel and expense management system will be one of the powerful remedies to the travel industry and will increase its scope to drive growth post-pandemic. According to the new Skift report, 88% of corporate travelers will drive travel technology company growth. 86% of corporate travel managers believe it. Put an end to complex budget management and legacy processes; it is time to know how to manage travel expenses in corporate. Frequently Asked Questions What is travel and expense process? The aim of the travel and expense process is the complete administration of travel expenses, including the recording of expenses, posting in Financial Accounting (FI), and allocation in Controlling (CO) and Funds Management (FI-FM). The process also involves the valuation of costs associated with business-related activities. Why is expense management important? Expense management is important for businesses because it helps employees to keep an accurate track of expenses. This caters to them to plan financial aspects for the future with more clarity and confidence. Capital flow is a daily process in any business, so to manage some significant amounts could get efficiently done through expense management and generate a profit. What is travel and expense management? Travel and expense management is a process that includes finance management by the employee when on a business trip or any expense is made for business goals. Each travel and expense management consists of detailed records of costs, expenditure, budgeting, and report submission.

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Spotlight

Priceline

At Priceline, part of Booking Holdings, Inc. [NASDAQ: BKNG], we believe every trip is a big deal to our customers. Whether it’s a much-needed getaway, wedding, reunion, graduation, or rooting on a favorite team—those are the moments that nobody should miss out on. Our mission? Be the best travel dealmakers in the world. We provide our customers with smart and easy ways to access the very best deals available on hotel rooms, flights, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises, so they can be there for the moments that matter the most to them.

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TripActions Raises $275M AT $7.25B Valuation

TripActions | October 14, 2021

In less than a year, TripActions has secured a second massive funding round – this time $275 million in Series F growth funding. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from prior investors Elad Gil, Base Partners and all key existing financial investors and values TripActions at $7.25 billion on a post-money basis. The funding comes less than nine months after TripActions' Series E round of $155 million in January. The travel management company's total funding to date is nearly $1.3 billion. Is an IPO coming soon for the six-year-old company? Michael Sindicich, general manager of TripActions Liquid, the company’s payment and expense management solution, says while an IPO would be a “natural fundraising opportunity and another milestone in our growth,” it is not planned for the near future. “We’ve got quite a lot of cash. We’re making great revenue. We are not in any rush to take the company public at this time,” Sindicich says. The vote of confidence from investors, he says, confirms TripActions’ belief that travel and expense management is “ripe for a tech makeover.” Despite the global impact of COVID-19 on travel, TripActions says it has now exceeded pre-pandemic levels in terms of bookings and revenue and has more than doubled its aggregate travel budget under management from February 2020 through the end of July this year. The gains are due in part to a focus on acquiring new enterprise customers, targeted with the launch of TripActions Enterprise Edition in September 2020. Clients include Heineken, Crate & Barrel, Snowflake, Thomson Reuters and Adobe. “We were there for these customers, they were switching from legacy travel agencies and booking tools, legacy expense platforms, because we were innovating, we were supporting, we were adapting to the way the new world would operate moving forward and that gave them a lot of confidence to actually make a change.” Michael Sindicich, general manager of TripActions Also adding fuel to TripActions' growth in the last 18 months: the launch of Liquid in February 2020, first as a payment solution and then in October 2020 adding expense management tools. Sindicich says transaction volume is similar for Liquid as for core travel, and more than 90% of the new companies TripActions is bringing onboard use its full suite of solutions for corporate travel, expense, spend and payment management. “Seventy-percent of expenses happen while employees are on trips,” he says. “So we’re learning about the power of the end-to-end solution. We built Liquid as a separate team in the beginning... and are now seeing that both platforms together, it’s a one-plus-one-equals-three type of situation.” Along with continuing to develop these products, TripActions will accelerate development of Lemonade, its personal travel booking solution that launched in October 2020. Lemonade gives employees at TripActions’ client companies’ access to negotiated rates and exclusive deals, notifications about COVID requirements and around-the-clock support for their leisure trips. The company is also continuing to develop TripActions Team Travel, a self-serve solution that launched in June to facilitate gatherings of distributed employees. Earlier this month it added support for meetings and events to Team Travel, leveraging the capabilities it gained with its acquisition of Reed & Mackay in May. TripActions will also add staff globally, expand its efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – Europe now represents 30% of TripActions’ business - and, says Sindicich, continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities. “We’re always looking for companies that would make sense to acquire and work with and add to the portfolio so this could be another deployment of this capital as well,” he says. “There’s not a prospect we are announcing or have in mind right now, but it would be natural for us to also look at other opportunities as well since we see Reed & Mackay is working so well for us.”

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Features and Advice

American Express GBT, Cvent Add Corporate Responsibility Questions To Hotel RFP

Cvent, American Express Global Business Travel | September 06, 2021

In an effort to gather and standardize data related to corporate social responsibility efforts at hotels, American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) and Cvent have created new questions for suppliers to answer as a supplement to the Global Business Travel Association’s request for proposals template. The joint initiative includes 47 questions focused on sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion that are intended to help travel managers evaluate suppliers on these issues. To develop the questions, GBT’s Global Business Consulting team (GBC) and Cvent interviewed corporations, global hotel brands, travel management companies and consultancies. The companies say along with helping travel managers evaluate hotels, the questions benefit hotels by reducing the time needed to respond to individual requests for information on these topics. “As we accelerate the return to travel and events, customer requests for supplier data on corporate responsibility issues are soaring,” says Nina Marcello, a principal within GBC who first proposed the initiative. “Together, GBC and Cvent worked with stakeholders across corporate and meetings travel to deliver a solution that will increase the availability of relevant sustainability and DE&I data. This initiative reflects our own environmental, social and governance commitments and enables suppliers and travel managers around the world to further their corporate responsibility goals. ” Hotel suppliers answer the supplemental questions, related to things such as carbon emissions and leadership demographics, within the Cvent Transient solution. Hotel chains can also work with their properties to collect and import the information to their profiles. “The speed at which we developed these questions reflects the significance of this work, and they are already being used by our hotel clients. This initiative benefits the entire corporate travel supply chain by facilitating the sharing and reporting of important topics that impact every organization,” says Brian Sullivan, senior director of product management at Cvent.

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Travel Technology

HUAWEI INVESTS $100M IN STARTUPS, MAKES FIRST TRAVEL MOVE IN MIDDLE EAST

Huawei | August 26, 2021

As part of its move away from hardware, Huawei is scaling up its cloud services and startup support in Asia Pacific and, while travel and hospitality is not top of mind yet, its move into this vertical seems inevitable with the expansion of its headquarters in Singapore and a recent first move in the Middle East. Huawei, facing pressure in Western markets and a slowdown in consumer business amid U.S. sanctions, has been steadily moving its focus away from manufacturing to become a tech and software company that believes “deeply in the power of digital technology to provide fresh solutions to the problems the world is facing right now. "We will keep on innovating to help build a low-carbon, intelligent world,” said Eric Xu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, at the release of business results for the first half earlier this month. In the Middle East, travel marketplace Wego is the first travel player to sign a partnership with Huawei’s Petal Search to integrate the travel app into Huawei smartphones. “The world of travel and hospitality has entered a new era of m-commerce, as more than 60% of travellers rely entirely on smartphone applications when making their travel plans. Pre-installing the Wego app into smartphones is part of our continuous efforts to enable these travellers to get the best deals and options when shopping for their holiday,” says Mamoun Hmedan, Wego managing director for MENA and India. From May, all Huawei smartphones EMUI 5 and above bundled with the Wego app will be made available across stores in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan. “Over the last few years, we have been noticing a significant rise in the number of Wego users on Huawei devices. Interestingly, it has also been noted that Huawei smartphone users tend to spend more on travel than the average Android user,” says Hmedan. In the startup space, Huawei announced its plan to invest $100 million in the ecosystem, with the funds going towards its Spark Program in the Asia Pacific region over the next three years. Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand are the priority markets and at the Huawei Cloud Spark Founders Summit in July, it announced the programme would develop four additional startup hubs – Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. The overarching aim is to recruit a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and shaping 100 of them into scaleups. Speaking at the Summit, Huawei senior vice president and board member Catherine Chen said 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just $5,000 of registered capital. “Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world.” Alexis Lee, Spark program manager at Huawei Cloud and AI Asia Pacific, who joined the team in January, told WebInTravel that 40 startups came through in the first cohort and about eight to 10 were identified to enter the “Spark Fire” programme, an accelerator. Zhang Ping’an, senior vice president of Huawei, CEO of Huawei Cloud BU, and president of Huawei Consumer Cloud Service, announced at the Summit that “we have already helped four of these startups launch new products and completely transform their businesses, while helping eight enter new markets”. It is currently in the midst of selecting the second cohort – entries closed last week. Lee, who previously worked in the investor space and was at Grab for two years, said how Huawei differentiated from other accelerators in Singapore is in its business development strength. “We introduce startups to clients, obviously in China, as well as global. China is obviously the most attractive market for scale up.” It does not take equity, rather it invests in kind, offering cloud infrastructure support in credits as well as a strong mentoring and investor network. “The programme is about building up the startup community, and sharing our resources. We have the tech know-how and the client network to help startups scale.” Areas of interest include anything to do with AI, ML or 5G and industry verticals include fintech, logistics, smart cities, ad tech and insurance tech. Huawei says its global HMS ecosystem is the world’s third largest mobile app ecosystem, serving 4.5 million developers in over 170 countries and regions. The goal is to cultivate over 100,000 HMS cloud-native developers in Asia Pacific over three years. Huawei Cloud is second in China and fifth in the global IaaS market.

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Travel Technology

TripActions Raises $275M AT $7.25B Valuation

TripActions | October 14, 2021

In less than a year, TripActions has secured a second massive funding round – this time $275 million in Series F growth funding. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from prior investors Elad Gil, Base Partners and all key existing financial investors and values TripActions at $7.25 billion on a post-money basis. The funding comes less than nine months after TripActions' Series E round of $155 million in January. The travel management company's total funding to date is nearly $1.3 billion. Is an IPO coming soon for the six-year-old company? Michael Sindicich, general manager of TripActions Liquid, the company’s payment and expense management solution, says while an IPO would be a “natural fundraising opportunity and another milestone in our growth,” it is not planned for the near future. “We’ve got quite a lot of cash. We’re making great revenue. We are not in any rush to take the company public at this time,” Sindicich says. The vote of confidence from investors, he says, confirms TripActions’ belief that travel and expense management is “ripe for a tech makeover.” Despite the global impact of COVID-19 on travel, TripActions says it has now exceeded pre-pandemic levels in terms of bookings and revenue and has more than doubled its aggregate travel budget under management from February 2020 through the end of July this year. The gains are due in part to a focus on acquiring new enterprise customers, targeted with the launch of TripActions Enterprise Edition in September 2020. Clients include Heineken, Crate & Barrel, Snowflake, Thomson Reuters and Adobe. “We were there for these customers, they were switching from legacy travel agencies and booking tools, legacy expense platforms, because we were innovating, we were supporting, we were adapting to the way the new world would operate moving forward and that gave them a lot of confidence to actually make a change.” Michael Sindicich, general manager of TripActions Also adding fuel to TripActions' growth in the last 18 months: the launch of Liquid in February 2020, first as a payment solution and then in October 2020 adding expense management tools. Sindicich says transaction volume is similar for Liquid as for core travel, and more than 90% of the new companies TripActions is bringing onboard use its full suite of solutions for corporate travel, expense, spend and payment management. “Seventy-percent of expenses happen while employees are on trips,” he says. “So we’re learning about the power of the end-to-end solution. We built Liquid as a separate team in the beginning... and are now seeing that both platforms together, it’s a one-plus-one-equals-three type of situation.” Along with continuing to develop these products, TripActions will accelerate development of Lemonade, its personal travel booking solution that launched in October 2020. Lemonade gives employees at TripActions’ client companies’ access to negotiated rates and exclusive deals, notifications about COVID requirements and around-the-clock support for their leisure trips. The company is also continuing to develop TripActions Team Travel, a self-serve solution that launched in June to facilitate gatherings of distributed employees. Earlier this month it added support for meetings and events to Team Travel, leveraging the capabilities it gained with its acquisition of Reed & Mackay in May. TripActions will also add staff globally, expand its efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – Europe now represents 30% of TripActions’ business - and, says Sindicich, continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities. “We’re always looking for companies that would make sense to acquire and work with and add to the portfolio so this could be another deployment of this capital as well,” he says. “There’s not a prospect we are announcing or have in mind right now, but it would be natural for us to also look at other opportunities as well since we see Reed & Mackay is working so well for us.”

Read More

Features and Advice

American Express GBT, Cvent Add Corporate Responsibility Questions To Hotel RFP

Cvent, American Express Global Business Travel | September 06, 2021

In an effort to gather and standardize data related to corporate social responsibility efforts at hotels, American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) and Cvent have created new questions for suppliers to answer as a supplement to the Global Business Travel Association’s request for proposals template. The joint initiative includes 47 questions focused on sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion that are intended to help travel managers evaluate suppliers on these issues. To develop the questions, GBT’s Global Business Consulting team (GBC) and Cvent interviewed corporations, global hotel brands, travel management companies and consultancies. The companies say along with helping travel managers evaluate hotels, the questions benefit hotels by reducing the time needed to respond to individual requests for information on these topics. “As we accelerate the return to travel and events, customer requests for supplier data on corporate responsibility issues are soaring,” says Nina Marcello, a principal within GBC who first proposed the initiative. “Together, GBC and Cvent worked with stakeholders across corporate and meetings travel to deliver a solution that will increase the availability of relevant sustainability and DE&I data. This initiative reflects our own environmental, social and governance commitments and enables suppliers and travel managers around the world to further their corporate responsibility goals. ” Hotel suppliers answer the supplemental questions, related to things such as carbon emissions and leadership demographics, within the Cvent Transient solution. Hotel chains can also work with their properties to collect and import the information to their profiles. “The speed at which we developed these questions reflects the significance of this work, and they are already being used by our hotel clients. This initiative benefits the entire corporate travel supply chain by facilitating the sharing and reporting of important topics that impact every organization,” says Brian Sullivan, senior director of product management at Cvent.

Read More

Travel Technology

HUAWEI INVESTS $100M IN STARTUPS, MAKES FIRST TRAVEL MOVE IN MIDDLE EAST

Huawei | August 26, 2021

As part of its move away from hardware, Huawei is scaling up its cloud services and startup support in Asia Pacific and, while travel and hospitality is not top of mind yet, its move into this vertical seems inevitable with the expansion of its headquarters in Singapore and a recent first move in the Middle East. Huawei, facing pressure in Western markets and a slowdown in consumer business amid U.S. sanctions, has been steadily moving its focus away from manufacturing to become a tech and software company that believes “deeply in the power of digital technology to provide fresh solutions to the problems the world is facing right now. "We will keep on innovating to help build a low-carbon, intelligent world,” said Eric Xu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, at the release of business results for the first half earlier this month. In the Middle East, travel marketplace Wego is the first travel player to sign a partnership with Huawei’s Petal Search to integrate the travel app into Huawei smartphones. “The world of travel and hospitality has entered a new era of m-commerce, as more than 60% of travellers rely entirely on smartphone applications when making their travel plans. Pre-installing the Wego app into smartphones is part of our continuous efforts to enable these travellers to get the best deals and options when shopping for their holiday,” says Mamoun Hmedan, Wego managing director for MENA and India. From May, all Huawei smartphones EMUI 5 and above bundled with the Wego app will be made available across stores in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan. “Over the last few years, we have been noticing a significant rise in the number of Wego users on Huawei devices. Interestingly, it has also been noted that Huawei smartphone users tend to spend more on travel than the average Android user,” says Hmedan. In the startup space, Huawei announced its plan to invest $100 million in the ecosystem, with the funds going towards its Spark Program in the Asia Pacific region over the next three years. Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand are the priority markets and at the Huawei Cloud Spark Founders Summit in July, it announced the programme would develop four additional startup hubs – Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. The overarching aim is to recruit a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and shaping 100 of them into scaleups. Speaking at the Summit, Huawei senior vice president and board member Catherine Chen said 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just $5,000 of registered capital. “Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world.” Alexis Lee, Spark program manager at Huawei Cloud and AI Asia Pacific, who joined the team in January, told WebInTravel that 40 startups came through in the first cohort and about eight to 10 were identified to enter the “Spark Fire” programme, an accelerator. Zhang Ping’an, senior vice president of Huawei, CEO of Huawei Cloud BU, and president of Huawei Consumer Cloud Service, announced at the Summit that “we have already helped four of these startups launch new products and completely transform their businesses, while helping eight enter new markets”. It is currently in the midst of selecting the second cohort – entries closed last week. Lee, who previously worked in the investor space and was at Grab for two years, said how Huawei differentiated from other accelerators in Singapore is in its business development strength. “We introduce startups to clients, obviously in China, as well as global. China is obviously the most attractive market for scale up.” It does not take equity, rather it invests in kind, offering cloud infrastructure support in credits as well as a strong mentoring and investor network. “The programme is about building up the startup community, and sharing our resources. We have the tech know-how and the client network to help startups scale.” Areas of interest include anything to do with AI, ML or 5G and industry verticals include fintech, logistics, smart cities, ad tech and insurance tech. Huawei says its global HMS ecosystem is the world’s third largest mobile app ecosystem, serving 4.5 million developers in over 170 countries and regions. The goal is to cultivate over 100,000 HMS cloud-native developers in Asia Pacific over three years. Huawei Cloud is second in China and fifth in the global IaaS market.

Read More

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