United Kingdom-based travel management company Business Travel Direct has become the first TMC in Europe to adopt Concur's full range of products, including all client-facing and mid-office tools, as well as open-booking platform TripLink. BTD solutions consultant Ian Ferguson told BTN TripLink during testing had responded well in parsing itineraries generated by U.K. travelers booking European suppliers.
BTD managing director Julie Oliver added that TripLink would help the TMC track a wider range of supplier bookings for corporate clients. "We have customers using Airbnb," she said. "We had a [request for proposals] recently that wanted to make Airbnb a preferred supplier, and we had to prove we could obtain the data." Oliver said clients also are showing interest in Concur's gamification product, less for its prize-based incentivization functionality and more as a benchmarking tool that gives bookers an average price comparison from across the Concur customer base.
Ferguson said BTD's partnership with Concur points to the way TMCs will operate in the future. "What Concur gives us is Lego bricks—we can play with different parts of it," he said. "TMCs will become travel solution providers who put their mark on top of world-class technology solutions. We can't put the same level of investment into research and development [as Concur does]." Oliver added that such partnerships could lead to client remuneration evolving from a transaction fee toward a subscription model.