Spotnana Leans in on TMC Partnership Ambitions

Since its launch, Spotnana has faced some confusion of where exactly to classify it in the corporate travel landscape.

The self-described "travel-as-a-service" platform has won its share of some of the biggest travel programs in the world as clients, but it also launched a partnership with one of the biggest travel management companies in the world when CWT announced it would offer a travel solution built on its infrastructure. So, some TMCs were left wondering whether Spotnana was friend or foe.

Spotnana over the past few months has leaned heavily into that "friend" classification, as it has intensified its ambitions to become the tech platform of choice for travel management companies with the launch of its TMC product suite as well as the launch of two TMCs' technology platforms built on its infrastructure. Spotnana has had clients for which it operates as a stand-alone TMC, but its growing stable of TMC partners is now where the company said it is prioritizing its growth. It plans to continue to support those existing Spotnana TMC customers "until they choose one of our TMC partners for TMC services," according to the company.

In May, Spotnana launched Spotnana Cloud for TMCs, a suite that includes access to Spotnana's content, its online booking tool and TMC management tools. The aim is to allow TMCs "to deliver a better value proposition to the end customer, and also to deliver at a cost structure that's compelling," Spotnana CEO Steve Singh said.

Reducing that cost structure will be one of Spotnana's primary areas of focus over the next year, Singh said. "We want to be able to make sure Spotnana Cloud allows the travel operations portion of TMC to operate as effectively as their existing back-office infrastructure at a fraction of the cost structure," he said.

That savings, in turn could either be passed on to TMC customers or re-invested in the business in sales or technology investments as the TMC sees fit, according to Singh.

Spotnana's other primary area of focus over the next year will be continuing to "invest aggressively in content," and ensuring that content is serviceable, he said. "We think it's critical that all content, no matter where it originates, is available in Spotnana," Singh said.

In the meantime, two TMCs recently have launched offerings built on that platform. Direct Travel, which was acquired by Singh's investment group last year, debuted the "Travel Edition" of its Avenir technology offering, which combines the Spotnana-powered booking platform with Direct Travel's services. JTB Business Travel also launched its own branded platform built on Spotnana, Teal.

Direct Travel chief product officer Sarah Kuberry Martino said the client base using Avenir Travel Edition is already in the "high double digits," with a new customer launching "pretty much every day," which she said spoke to the ease of getting customers live. Some of the early feedback has highlighted the simplicity of use, content visibility and self-servicing capabilities, she said.

Consulting firm ZS has been among the earliest adopters of Avenir, with the company having made the decision to move to the Spotnana platform even before Singh had announced the Direct Travel acquisition, ZS travel lead Sarah Hayden said. The company "wanted that strong technology base for our program" and went into a request-for-proposal process to verify that Spotnana was the right choice, according to Hayden. Its capabilities in user experience, content and data capture validated that decision, she said.

"We wanted a very tech-forward approach in the program, with automation in the hands of the travelers," Hayden said. "We wanted them to book and self-service and not feel inclined to go on Google Flights to price compare."

Hayden said ZS "absolutely felt the support" from Direct Travel "to comb through every aspect of our program" throughout the implementation. The company provided daily feedback from travel arrangers and travelers to help hone the tool, as well as provide a wish list for an "enhancement roadmap," she said.

Martino said the Avenir Travel Edition launch was "step one," with plans to add additional value, products and experiences. Direct ATPI, the global travel management organization that Direct Travel formed with U.K.-based ATPI, announced plans to launch the platform across the U.K. and Europe in the second half of this year, with a global rollout planned throughout next year.

Some of the key enhancements will be around data, as Direct Travel has been "massively investing" to revamp its data platform from the ground up, adding in new technologies such as Snowflake, Martino said.

"It's going to basically allow us to create a whole new set of data services, insights, recommendations and predictions, and then tie those things into making them actionable on the Spotnana platform," she said.

For the traveler, that could mean pulling recommendations from data specific to their booking activity—if a traveler was booking a flight to Chicago in the winter, for example, it could advise them to plan around what likely will be a delayed flight, she said.

Direct Travel also is working on a set of tools and capabilities for travel managers that it is loosely calling the "travel concierge," Martino said. That would take some tasks off a travel manager's plate, such as answering commonly asked questions, to free them up for a more strategic role.

For JTB Business Travel, launching Teal was a continuation of its work with Spotnana. Last year, it partnered with Spotnana to bring the booking platform to its Goodwings brand, a sustainability-focused travel management platform based in Copenhagen.

The Teal offering positions JTB Business Travel "to be a leading TMC in the midmarket," as a limited number of TMCs can support global programs, and the largest TMCs might not be able to give the same level of attention to the smaller programs compared with global enterprise clients, JTB USA VP of global business travel Geert de Boo said. Teal implementation in multiple countries is relatively fast, and that is boosted by its multiple owned points of sale—Teal is currently available in 15 countries and expected to increase to 25 countries where JTB Business Travel already has points of sale by the end of the year—that enable a consistent global experience, he said.

"Rolling out a global program across many markets has become a lot easier in terms of implementation, but it also gives a lot more control to the travel manager," de Boo said.

While JTB Business Travel expects some clients using its legacy travel services offering will want to shift to Teal technology, the big opportunity will be reaching out to new market segments, he said.

"It's a good fit for any company, but we see particular interest from fintech, technology companies, startups, biopharma, which have a different corporate culture in how they procure travel and what's important in terms of travel experience," de Boo said. "We see changes in the industry, new generations coming into the workforce that grew up in a tech-based world, and this allows us to service their needs and be ready for tomorrow."

Besides JTB Business Travel and Direct Travel—and CWT, though what would happen to that relationship should CWT successfully merge with American Express Global Business Travel is not yet clear—Spotnana's currently listed TMC partners include Cadence, which announced its partnership in March, and Solutions Travel, which launched as the first TMC built from Spotnana's technology infrastructure. As a testament to the speed of deployment of Spotnana technology, Greeley Koch, managing director of 490 Consulting, highlighted Solutions’ rapid growth at BTN's Tech Talk event in Chicago last month.

"It's less than a couple of years old and is already a $100 million travel agency, operating in 30-some countries around the world," Koch said.

While Singh said that "at some point, we would love all TMCs to be on our infrastructure," the company for now has a "methodical" growth plan with TMCs. The focus is more on ensuring those that move to the platform are successful, he said.

"I don't know that we're overly focused on whether we have three or five or 10 TMC partners in the next year," Singh said. "As long as they are consuming all the benefits of Spotnana Cloud, we're happy."