MORE Asian multinational companies are cutting down on local TMCs in favour of a centralised global corporate travel management system for greater convenience and savings.
Singapore-based Applied Materials South East Asia awarded its travel management contract to Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) in November last year and is now using a call centre in Poland.
The company’s regional travel manager of global travel services, Winnie Liew, told TTGmice e-Weekly that using CWT helped because many of her travellers head to the US where they fly on Southwest Airlines whose “best deals can’t be purchased in Asia”.
“We need a lot of non-GDS carrier content, especially for Southwest Airlines in the US,” Liew explained. “This prompted staff to buy direct from the airline’s website and as a result we lost track of our travellers.”
She added: “Furthermore, our people move from country to country so there are a lot of challenges in profiling. CWT enables us to move profiles from country to country, saving our travellers the hassle of having to fill out their profiles every time they are transferred.”
Swiss global financial services company UBS had also recently replaced 13 different relationships with its TMCs in 13 markets with two in the US and Asia-Pacific. It also set up four to five call centres across the world.
Debbie Winston, executive director, regional head of travel, Asia Pacific, commented: “We see the value of a global travel programme which offers better compliance. The online booking tools particularly drive better behaviour as the number of touches per transaction is less than 25. Disciplined bookers drive efficiency and bring savings.”
However, travel managers pointed out that content gaps in Asia-Pacific, especially in air and hotel components in China and Japan, are limiting the real potential for companies to move entirely to a centralised travel management system.
Liew said: “GDS system is different here in Asia and languages are diverse. We still have to rely on local TMCs in China and Japan. In China we use Ctrip.”
