Biggest Buyers Swap Insight On Containing Cost

Keeping prices pinned back in a rapidly recovering market is the number-one priority among the elite of America's travel buyers, if a private think-tank staged at this week's Corporate Travel World show in New York is anything to go by.

Almost 50 of BTN's Top 100 travel purchasers swapped tips and experiences on a lengthy list of issues close to their hearts that included staging global air bids, striking the right balance between corporate deals and spot-buying opportunities, getting tough with hotels on rate loading and how to avoid being beaten up north of the border by Air Canada.

A show of hands revealed deep splits in opinion over use of lowest fares. Participants divided into roughly three equal camps. The first indicated they always make travelers use the corporate fare; the second insisted travelers book the lowest logical airfare, regardless of carrier. The third group mandates the lowest fare but only if it is a specified amount cheaper than the corporate fare. Within this group, most said the lowest fare had to be around $150 cheaper, but one travel manager said it had to be a minimum of $500 cheaper, a steep condition influenced by missing out recently on a monthly hurdle of $20,000 for a corporate deal.

"You are all walking a very delicate line. You need to do the analysis," commented Carol Ann Salcito, president of the consultancy Management Alternatives in the wrap-up for the Corporate Travel 100 session. Taking the lowest fare increasingly means using a low-cost carrier, but Salcito warned that this effectively could mean taking an entire city pair out of an agreement. Buyers need to run the numbers first to ensure this does not cannibalize any corporate deal so far that it causes a net cost increase.