U.K.'s Big Spenders Set Sights On 2000

<H1>U.K.'s Big Spenders Set Sights On 2000</H1>By Amon Cohen

<I>London</I> - Automation of travel booking and expense reporting needs to be standard corporate practice by the end of the century, according to the United Kingdom's top travel buyers.

The need for automation is part of the vision of where the Business Travel Liaison Group wants travel management to be by the year 2000. BTLG's 25 members represent the U.K.'s largest travel spenders, including BT, the BBC, Barclays Bank and ICI.

The group kicked off its project, called Vision 2000, with a seven-point summary of travel processes that BTLG expects to be universally available by 2000 (see box below). BTLG will address other aspects of travel management in future reports.

BTLG opted to start with travel processes because, unlike controversial subjects such as frequent flyer programs, it is an issue on which there is broad consensus. Members agreed that they want to demystify the process of booking travel and make it no different from ordering paper clips or any other commodity.

"Creative purchasers have been looking at ways of processing low-to-medium-value, high-volume orders," said John Cash, manager of purchasing and fleet/travel operations for Rank Xerox, who is in charge of the Vision 2000 project. "We want people in our companies to spend more time doing their jobs and less time filling in expense claims and travel requests."

Cash believes the vision could be fundamentally reshaped by two phenomena looming on the European business travel horizon. One is the advent of ticketless travel. The other is deregulation of intra-Europe aviation in 1997, possibly accompanied by a deregulated U.S.-U.K. market which would be a spinoff of the British Airways-American Airlines alliance. Deregulation could make the way buyers order their travel far more complex, Cash believes.<H3>BTLG's Vision 2000

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1. Travelers should be able to book simple trips directly from their PCs, using a program that ensures compliance with corporate policy.

2. The program should offer pull-down menus identifying preferred suppliers.

2. All bookings should be channeled to an authorizer's PC for pre-trip approval.

3. Complex trips or those that do not meet policy should be diverted to the authorizer's PC.

4. Financial officers should be able to monitor all requisitions to question whether a trip is necessary.

5. Travel managers should be able to monitor all transactions to ensure they meet all company rules, such as the number of employees allowed on the same flight and the reason for taking the trip.

6. Travelers and travel arrangers should be able to complete expenses on their PC live or in real time.

7. Travel is booked to the traveler's charge card, not to the company.