World Travel Inc. has rolled out a new all-in-one online booking and expense management tool built upon technology from TravelBank. Dubbed WorldHub Travel & Expense, the platform is designed for the travel management company's small and midsize corporate travel clients, offering access to negotiated air, hotel and ground transport rates and automatically creating expense reports for completed bookings.
TravelBank CEO Duke Chung described WorldHub as a "gray label" service that will be powered by TravelBank's platform but have World Travel's branding. For TravelBank, the partnership represents a departure from the company's usual distribution model of offering its own travel and expense platform directly to SME corporate clients. Chung indicated that TravelBank is increasing its focus on distribution via travel management companies through technological partnerships, reseller deals and other structures.
"We're excited to explore this new type of distribution," Chung said. "Our all-in-one pricing with travel and expenses is great for TMCs compared to traditional booking fee-only models and we're always looking for new ways to partner with like-minded companies."
In July, TravelBank began offering its expense management services through the platform of unmanaged and lightly managed corporate travel booking specialist Upside Business Travel, the first step in a planned strategic partnership between the companies.