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Technology

Amex GBT Launches New Benchmarking Tool for Buyers

By Amanda Metcalf / March 05, 2019 / Contact Reporter
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American Express Global Business Travel has launched, among other tech upgrades that benefit from its large collection of data, a benchmarking tool for buyers that enables comparisons against different peer groups and that considers traveler well-being. The mega travel management company labeled the wave of updates as the latest products of a technology investment program running since 2015, shortly after investment firm Certares injected $900 million into GBT, which spun off from American Express as a 50/50 joint venture.

Redefining A Company's Peer Group for Travel Program Benchmarking ...

Thanks to the vast amount of traveler information and bookings it collects—Travel Weekly's 2018 Power List ranks GBT as the largest purely corporate travel agency, with $32.7 billion in sales in 2017—GBT's analytics capabilities have a lot of data to work with. (Travel Weekly, like BTN, is owned by Northstar Travel Group.) GBT said it holds more than six years of such information in its data lake. The new benchmarking tool, Peer Travel Insights, enables travel programs to develop peer groups not only by industry—agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining; construction; manufacturing, transportation, communications, electric, gas and sanitary service; wholesale trade; retail trade; finance; insurance and real estate; services; and public administration—but also by five other characteristics:

  • number of employees
  • air spend
  • percentage of online bookings
  • point-of-sale country
  • percentage of domestic economy fares

The system guides users to develop a peer group of at least five and no more than 20 companies and can tell the user his or her company's rank on 40 key performance indicators. Peer Travel Insights complements the Premier Insights data visualization tool GBT launched in 2016 and offers the following dashboards:

  • Air Supplier Optimization: fare comparison by carrier and by origin and destination
  • Air Online Adoption
  • Air Advance Purchase
  • Air Class of Service
  • Air Same Day Trips
  • Hotel Supplier Optimization
  • Hotel Tier Usage
  • Car Supplier Optimization
  • Car Class of Service
  • Traveler Well-Being

... Plus Traveler Well-Being Benchmarking

Peer Travel Insights also adds a modern-day layer to travel program benchmarking with the last in that list: traveler well-being. For that category, GBT considers positive factors like use of nonstop flights and, on international trips, use of business class seats, plus friction factors like use of red-eye flights and time spent away from home. All form a traveler well-being score for each company, and the Traveler Well-Being dashboard benchmarks that against peers, as well. The idea is to inform travel managers who may want to change their travel policies. Chief technology officer David Thompson said the dashboard allows travel managers "to better understand the relationship between cost containment, travel policy and employee productivity."

Booking Recommendations Coming to North America ...

Having acquired KDS in October 2016, GBT already uses artificial intelligence to analyze travelers' previous travel behavior, the patterns of similar travelers and company policy to develop booking suggestions in the KDS Neo booking tool. "Neo's smart search and booking engine can deliver a complete itinerary in seconds, combining air/rail, accommodations and ground transport in an intuitive, interactive, web and mobile interface," according to GBT. The Neo recommendation engine is available to GBT customers in EMEA and will launch in May for clients in North America.

... Now with a Hotel Attachment Solution

Now, GBT has added a hotel attachment feature to solve for travelers who book flights first but not the hotel portions of their trips. Trip Recommender, which is online booking tool agnostic but powered by the same AI in Neo, emails those travelers with hotel suggestions—again based on policy, traveler history and the patterns of similar travelers—and a click-to-book option.

Mobile App Upgrades

GBT has added real-time messaging with live agents globally, available via app and web. The app also now includes click-to-call; face or fingerprint login with compatible iOS and Android devices; and one-click booking from the booking recommendation engine. Client-based hotel reviews, a flight-boarding-countdown timer and embedded corporate messaging additionally are on the way this year. A spokesperson said GBT will explain the embedded corporate messaging in detail when the product comes out.

In-House Hotel Reshop Solution

GBT has launched a proprietary Hotel Re-shop Expert to reshop booked hotel rates and recommend cheaper rates for hotels with similar amenities and the same room type. It's available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada and will be available in "key proprietary GBT countries" like Australia, Mexico, France and Germany this year. "TMCs now need their own technology that helps companies manage the entire travel ecosystem," said Evan Konwiser, GBT VP of product strategy and marketing. "Some may opt for more proprietary tools and others may look for third parties." However, Yapta still powers GBT's Air Re-shop Expert.

Core Technology Platform

All the new data capabilities stem from GBT's new Core Technology Platform, a three-legged stool: a Global Trip Record across agent, online and mobile traveler touches; a single master traveler-managed profile called Connect Profile; and a Supply Management Platform to assemble rich inventory and content from all channels, including global distribution systems, aggregators, online travel agencies and direct connections. Read more about GBT's tech platform in BTN sister publication The Beat (subscription required).


Updated at 12:15 p.m. Eastern on March 8, 2019, to add detail on Peer Travel Insights' peer group methodology.

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