Chambers, Portman and Business Travel Direct have been confirmed as the first UK travel management companies to join travel and expense management firm Concur’s preferred partner programme.
The new scheme has been designed to recognise industry leading TMCs committed to the future of smart business travel by incorporating digital solutions within their core customer offerings.
As part of the arrangement, TMCs will offer customers Concur TripLink, a solution that captures and centralises data from staff business travel including flights, hotels and ground transportation.
This service gives companies a complete picture of employee spend while travelling and captures reservations booked outside a corporate travel system, meaning they save money and gain compliance and control.
A rewards scheme aims to incentivise travellers to make smart decisions that keep travel spend at a minimum.
Concur senior vice president and general manager UK enterprise, Isabel Montesdeoca, said: “A large number of businesses and employees have advanced technological capabilities in other aspects of their lives and they’ll come to expect it from business travel management as well.
“It’s the TMCs that share Concur’s vision of creating the perfect business travel experience through digitalisation that will succeed in the future.“
Chambers Travel group chief executive Chris Thelen said: “Chambers shares Concur’s vision for the future of smart business travel and technology has a big part to play in this. It means we can offer our customers a wider portfolio of services giving us a competitive edge.
“Chambers has been accepted into the programme at a time when our customers are expecting more and they feel pressure to cater to employee demand.
“Concur TripLink gives business travellers the freedom to book as they wish and it gives our customers the visibility to manage both duty-of-care needs and the budget; it’s a win-win situation.”
Portman Travel chief executive Steve Allen said: “Over the past 18 months, Portman has focused on providing clients with the best online tools and trip management technology available. This includes an integrated approach to fare and rate sourcing and the aggregation of global content for total trip management.
“Our recognition as part of Concur’s preferred partner programme is another proof-point of our relentless drive to keep evolving so that our customers can as well.
“It’s our mission to help customers meet their travel management objectives and enable them to connect every trip, every traveller and every pound spent. Without visibility and control, our customers are unable to capture the data required to drive savings and ultimately build strategic supplier relationships.”
Business Travel Direct managing director Julie Oliver said: “It’s our goal to help customers make the transition to become digitally enhanced organisations with more streamlined processes to keep admin down.
“Concur TripLink creates simple user profiles that sync the spending habits of employees providing one report that tracks everything. It’s making the back-end processes such as reporting simpler.”
*Concur has also agreed a partnership with car rental company Sixt allows travellers to directly book car hire according to their company conditions and in compliance with travel expense regulations.