Travel Management Companies – more than just a travel agent

Finding a good travel agent for your company’s travel bookings is probably more about who you are than anything else. Certainly, ‘caveat emptor’, let the buyer beware, applies now as much as ever before but, in many ways, the risk has been mitigated with the growth of Travel Management Companies. In Australia and New Zealand, travel is an integral part of doing business for most companies and needs to be well managed to ensure the costs associated bring best value to the organisation as a whole. The advent of Travel Management Companies (TMCs) brings to business travel the core competencies of specialisation, professionalism and understanding. Without these three attributes your TMC would just be another travel agency. This is especially relevant when dealing with a member of the Association of Travel Management Companies (ATMC).

Specialisation - This is all about the skills TMCs have developed to met the needs of business travellers. No longer can TMCs be just good travel agents and deliver tickets and itineraries, they need to be expert in developing a value proposition which manages supplier negotiation, travel inventory, price, reporting, policy and updates on new developments in the travel industry at home and abroad.
Systems used by TMCs are designed to deliver maximum benefit to the business travel market and are more extensive that those used by the general travel agency community. The reduction of commissions and the introduction of transaction fees.

Professionalism - requires the TMC to have systems, processes and skills in place that have been pressure tested and robust. Travel is all about meeting deadlines and being well prepared and it is only when the pressure is on do we appreciate the skills and resources that have been put at our disposal. Professionalism also covers the way the TMC interacts travel suppliers and the relationships required to ensure your company receives the highest level of priority regardless of where the company employee may be travelling to.

Understanding – is what makes the difference. This requires the TMC to make it their business to be attentive not only to your company’s goals and objectives but also to the needs of the individual traveller who, ye again, is on the road on behalf of the company and away from home.

Regardless of how routine a trip may be, problems can arise that could never have been provided for when the reservation was initially made. Business Travellers have very defined needs which are generally determined by customers or internal requirements and are time sensitive. Members of the ATMC TMCs model themselves around these requirements and respond accordingly.

©Gordon Young 2005. All rights reserved