Tech Takes Corporate Travel World Focus

<H1> Tech Takes Corporate Travel World Focus</H1>By Cheryl RosenNew York - Despite the "no comments" with which both parties responded to speculation that IBM might be interested in buying American Airlines' Sabre Group, the two technology giants appeared to have forged an alliance of some sort in the travel marketplace.

At <I>BTN</I>'s Corporate Travel World show in the snow-covered Big Apple earlier this month, keynote speaker Gregory Conley, general manager of IBM's Travel Industry Solutions unit, called on a Sabre representative to share his stage, and seasoned his remarks with a quote on the nature of change from former American Airlines technology guru Max Hopper.

Hopper's insights did seem fitting at a show dominated by the promise of technology that for the most part has not yet quite arrived (see Travel Technology feature story, this issue). Every major wave of change, Conley quoted Hopper as saying, begins with a large wave of hype, followed by a trough of disappointment when expectation is not met, and then a rebound when change not only meets the hype but exceeds it.

The point surely was that travel managers-awash somewhere between the hype and the trough-should neither "fight change nor fear it." In a period when the next generation of travel management tools is in its formative stage, it behooves travel managers to get involved in the development process and "drive the change, so it benefits you and your business."

As for his own vision of the future, Conley offered up a day when technology will be focused on improving customer service, tapping databases that are largely untapped today. "Think of the day you can swipe a smart card at the airport and have the computer say, 'Mr. Conley, sorry about that delay on your last flight-we're going to upgrade you to first class,' " he said.

He also noted that IBM is focused on the Internet as a way for businesses to serve customers through handheld devices, smart cards, data mining and integrated travel management solutions.

Sharing Conley's stage, Sabre offered a demo of its Business Travel Solutions system, now in beta test and still scheduled for release by midyear. Also on stage was the new front-end, Windows-based Advanced Communication System Access system, codeveloped by IBM and Sabre, which allows users to connect to multiple CRS systems and non-participating airlines through a menu-driven format-just pull down the list of CRSs and click.

Overall, Conley explained, IBM's Travel and Transportation unit "wants to deliver end-to-end vertical solutions-if you need marketing reach, integrated property management or CRS services for the hotel industry, or smart cards, we'll deliver them in any form you want."

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There was standing room only for BTN's Town Hall, where one of the key topics of the moment-agentless travel-was addressed by panelist Colleen Guhin, corporate travel manager for Texas Instruments, which boasts some $160 million in T&E. Guhin noted that agentless systems would have to have a trio of attributes-be work-, cost-, and time-efficient-in order to be sought out extensively by corporate travelers as the concept advances.

"We can only be as agentless as technology allows," she stressed, adding that greater efficiencies would have to be realized than what's now being offered. Guhin conceded, "The role for agents is going to be different," but she did not see the need for agents going away. Echoing some industry sentiment, she said, "Agents will need to be more like consultants, but they will have to be consultants on the system itself."

Guhin's tech thoughts were bolstered during the same session by Fred Swaffer, corporate travel manager for Hewlett-Packard Co. Taking on ticketless travel, Swaffer swatted at the terminology itself, calling usage of "ticketless" a misnomer that only serves to confuse. With some 60,000 H-P employees traveling at any given time (25 percent is international), 15 percent are using an electronic environment, "although it's limited still to point-to-point travel," Swaffer said. He said he "would like to see it go to 100 percent," but admitted it's currently being used in a limited fashion because "the technology is limited." Both Guhin and Swaffer agreed that regardless of whatever technology is being put out there, suppliers should ask themselves, "What does the customer want?" Now there is a thought.

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Agents and agencies were on the minds of Rosenbluth president and CEO Hal Rosenbluth and Travel Management Group president Tom Wilkinson as they looked at "Redefining the Agency Role in a Post-Reservationist World" during a morning session. Moderated by <I>BTN</I> editor-in-chief David Meyer, the presentation saw the duo predict some percentages of automation in the coming years. Wilkinson estimated "65 to 70 percent of itineraries can be automated," with Rosenbluth putting the figure closer to 80 percent. "It really depends on the system," said Rosenbluth. "It can be voice versus e-mail. If it's simple and it works, it'll be successful." However, don't throw those phones away just yet. Rosenbluth was confident that agentless travel would stay low, perhaps up 10 percent in the next two years.

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Just in time for April 15, attorney Jonathan T. Howe, president of Howe & Hutton, Ltd., Chicago, brought travel managers up to speed on how the IRS and business travelers are dancing together in the wake of the recently raised ($25 to $75) receipt threshold. Howe noted that many corporations' accounting departments are still asking for the lesser receipts to hold down costs because some travelers interpret the rule to mean "have a $74.99 lunch." Some words to the wise: Make copies of faxed receipts. Depending on the paper, faxes can disappear and your record is gone.

Consider presenting that cocktail reception/dinner party as a "nighttime program/seminar at which refreshments will be served;" go for the "ordinary and necessary" versus the "lavish or extravagant" in order to keep audit flags down-particularly if a brochure is being sent out; the IRS often asks to see the collateral. Ask the IRS agent to put in writing what is being asked for if questions arise.

Howe also emphasized the need for managers to understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion: "Five to eight years."

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Accentuating Conley's calls to embrace the digital era, technology vendors on every floor of the trade show were exhibiting wares that offer Windows-based solutions for individual travelers and traveler managers alike. (See Travel Management Technology, Page 12.)

But Insight Data Corp., a Fort Collins, Colo., subsidiary of Stevens Travel Management, was offering its first Windows-based product designed exclusively for travel management. The software can integrate both pre- and post-trip booking and expense data into easy-to-read charts and graphs that illustrate corporate market share and other data useful for submitting RFPs, according to Michael Garone, director of sales for Stevens Travel Management.

On the travelers' end, not every travel manager was enthusiastic about future contingents of employees arranging travel armed with mouse, modem and keyboard.

In one of the final seminars, "Mega Res Centers and Agentless Systems-Lower Costs and Happier Travelers," one travel manager challenged the pro-automation spirit: Isn't it still a waste of time, asked Guy Sandusky, manager of travel services at Los Alamos National Laboratory, for "a physicist designing nuclear triggers" to reserve his plane ticket when he has more important things to do (and is probably getting paid more to do so)? The sentiment was echoed by other travel managers who pointed to the inefficiency of requiring highly paid senior executives to spend their valuable time performing a reservationist's task, a job that pays a significantly lower salary.

Another travel manager, however, has taken a middle-of-the-road approach in practice. Maurice O'Steen, travel manager for USAA Travel Services, San Antonio, Texas, employs "travel coordinators" to present his highly computer-literate travelers with travel options as well as assistance in planning their trips.

"We have 16,000 to 17,000 employees and about 11,000 of them work out of a virtual office," said O'Steen. "Instead of letting the travelers do it themselves, every area [a company department that ranges in size from 20 to 100 employees] picks out one or two travel coordinators who are on hand to discuss travel options." Still, some of the company's executives told O'Steen that they wanted to learn Sabre.

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Terry Sullo, corporate travel manager for Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc., compares the industry trend toward automation with the introduction of the Gaseteria several years ago. People who pump their own get discounts; the roles of gas attendants change (self-service doesn't cause them to lose their jobs); and the oil companies (or, in this case, airlines) will let all the players-consumers, self-service and full-service stations-fight it out. In other words, "demand for discounted technology will drive do-it-your self systems," said Sullo.

Stefani C. O'Connor and David Marcus contributed to this story.