Global Council Yields Dividends

<H1>Global Council Yields Dividends</H1><H3>By Cheryl Rosen</H3>Benton Harbor, Mich. - If the point of a global travel council is to exchange ideas, then Whirlpool certainly has gotten its money's worth. The company's overseas operations have started to apply the U.S. division's concepts of travel agency consolidation and intercontinental vendor agreements. In return, the stateside operation has picked up some ideas about teleconferencing and automated expense reporting.

In the United States, Whirlpool has just renewed its contract with Maritz Travel Co. as its single agency, effective July 1. The contract is management-fee based and includes a financial incentive for Maritz if it holds operating expenses under budget. In the current environment, none of the four bidders on the contract-Maritz, BTI Americas, American Express and super-regional Total Travel Management of Detroit-offered a rebate.

Following the U.S. example, Whirlpool operations in Europe are beginning a rollout of their own consolidated travel program under Carlson Wagonlit Travel, which also has been serving Whirlpool in Canada. Asia consolidated six months ago with United Overseas Bank.

Joint vendor agreements are not the direct result of the Travel Council but reflections of informal agreements and vendor partnerships built there, said corporate travel manager Judy Steinke, who co-chairs the council with Cary Marsh, Whirlpool's Business Travel Center director. The agreements include one with Avis that covers Europe and the United States, and one with Budget for the U.S. and Canada. An air agreement, whose details she declined to cite, covers all of North and South America. "It's nice to show the Travel Council how much benefit there is to working together," Steinke said.

Travel policy at Whirlpool are left to the individual regions; the U.S. policy is offered as a guide but not mandated. Still, she acknowledged, she was surprised to see the new European policy, which becomes official this week, mandating the use of teleconferencing rather than travel as a "first method of communication for meetings of one day where people have already met." While Steinke believes "there's always something to be gained by face-to-face meetings," she said the mandated teleconference is a fascinating concept. "We may just learn from the Europeans on this one," she said.

In the technology arena, the U.S. division has the lead in automated booking, and will begin beta testing Maritz's Express system with eight to 10 travel arrangers in August. At the same time, Maritz will be installing its Polaris management reporting system, as well as ProView, its multiple CRS system.

But Europe has taken the lead in electronic expense reporting, where the Carlson Wagonlit product has just been installed. Still, Steinke is not far behind: She already has seen a demo of the new Unisys electronic expense reporting system (see story, Page one) and hopes to offer the system, or one like it, to Whirlpool travelers "in the near future," Steinke said.