ARC Developing Global Reporting Capabilities For CTDs

Nearly eight years since ARC accredited its first corporate travel department, there are more than 120 CTDs certified to operate from 192 locations in the United States under company-owned ARC numbers. While ARC strives to enhance the services and support available to companies managing travel under the CTD designation, corporate travel managers are working with the organization to push the ARC corporate travel department into the dynamic, technological and increasingly global future of travel management.

Though growth of the CTD program has slowed to 10 new locations per year for the past two years, ARC's leadership anticipated that internal restructuring initiatives will help enhance and promote the benefits of obtaining the ARC-issued accreditation.

"We believe that by year-end there will probably be over 200 CTD locations," said June Bennett, the veteran Continental Airlines executive who last month was appointed ARC vice president of sales and customer relations. "The program is growing and there are many CTD applications in the pipeline that we can't talk about right now. ARC really has never actively promoted this program for a variety of reasons, and that's something we're revisiting."

In addition to developing enhanced reporting functionalities, such as an origin and destination report capability that will be launched in mid-September, Bennett said that ARC is focusing intently on the global travel management market.

"ARC had to make huge adaptations to the changing, evolving, global economy," Bennett said. "Today, if you have a U.S. point of sale, you can settle global transactions, but it would be in U.S. currency. We are definitely interested in achieving global settlement and we have an initiative underway. The primary reason I was brought into the company was that we're evaluating the future of the company and travel management and looking at those types of initiatives."

Some of the industry's most forward-thinking CTDs are working with ARC to realize the goal of global settlement, but travel managers remain hesitant to comment on the company's global settlement initiative.

"Into the future, the industry is going to have to change. We are looking to help drive that change," said Duane Futch, director of aviation for Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant Wal-Mart. "It's too early to have detailed discussions on this process. However, if you look at all the organizations that need to be involved, such as ARC, the airlines, a company like Wal-Mart, the GDSs, then you would understand the challenges it's facing. There's settlement and international law that you have to walk through. I don't think the combined effort is far enough along for this to be a reality just yet."

Others see the realization of global settlement on a much nearer horizon. "Companies are looking at the next generation of the CTD model to function multilaterally, using multiple currencies," said Andrew Menkes, chairman and CEO of Princeton, N.J.-based Partnership Travel Consulting and founder of the first CTD. "You can't, as a CTD, ticket outside the United States. I've been in discussions with a number of parties to look at that issue and it's something people are working on." Menkes anticipates that global settlement through ARC will be a primary focus of this winter's annual CTD conference.

"The short-term frontier is to consolidate meetings under the CTD and beyond that, globally, would be hotel commissions," he said. "An ARC number is recognized globally by hotels and it's only a matter of time before that becomes a reality. The short term will see global CTD settlement for hotel, and the next frontier will be air."

While global air settlement would add value to the CTD accreditation, Bennett foresees more near-term program interest and growth as a result of ARC's technological enhancements to data management and reporting, as well as more aggressive promotion.

"If we're able to really start promoting the program actively, in showing it as a win-win with our travel agency partners and corporate clients, you'll see real growth," Bennett said. "Seeing some of the applications that are in the pipeline, it's a tiring and often bureaucratic process. It has a lot to do with the skill of the travel manager and his comfort level with presenting that kind of data and analysis to senior management. That willingness and ability to get senior management buy-in is probably the biggest hindrance to the program and, if not for that, you'd probably see a lot more CTDs."