MAXIMISING airline override deals should be the future focus for Advantage Business Travel Centres, according to its business development manager Norman Gage.
Outlining his vision to a meeting of the Advantage Board last Wednesday, Gage said the consortium’s business travel members are failing to make use of their collective buying power to increase their earnings through airline incentive agreements.
“I think there will be a gradual erosion of commission – it’s a creeping paralysis. Instead the big people will bulk buy and the little people will take the crumbs from under the table.”
He said to protect themselves, members must club together to secure better deals with airlines.
Advantage already has an agreement with the Star Alliance, which completes its first year at the end of the month.
Gage admitted the consortium will not reach the targets set by the Star Alliance because the original negotiations had not taken into account the British Airways strike in 1997 which had won Star Alliance members extra business.
“They were tough targets because we were expected to improve on that. We are negotiating targets for next year,” he said.
Advantage is also holding talks with KLMand BA to secure incentive deals for the first time.
“We have been bubbling along on the airline side but it could be better,” said Gage. He added that part of the problem was collating booking data from all its members to demonstrate to airlines how much business the members’ were collectively generating.
“If you put all our members together, we are spending more than the likes of Carlson Wagonlit Travel,” said Gage.
“However, we haven’t got any proof of that to bring to the negotiation table.”
Advantage is considering investing in a quality-control product called Corre, which will also allow it to record the data needed to negotiate more effectively.