Concur has integrated with more suppliers to add
accommodation choices for travelers and to simplify e-receipt capture for
Chinese travelers.
China's WeChat
Mutual clients of Concur and Chinese mobile messaging and
payment app WeChat can link their accounts and send WeChat e-receipts, or e-fapiaos,
to Concur Expense. Corporates must enable Concur's WeChat e-Fapiao Connector
first. From WeChat, travelers can designate which business-related expenses to
send to Concur Expense, which automatically creates an expense line item and
eliminates the need to print receipts.
Concur customized the solution to comply with "the
latest Chinese e-fapiao requirements," a Concur spokesperson said. WeChat
integrates with a range of business travel, food and beverage, e-commerce,
retail and telecom suppliers, according to the spokesperson. Often referred to
as China's "app for everything," it has more than 877 million users,
according to its Facebook page, though other sources claim it has as many as 982
million monthly active users.
BCD Travel's TripSource Hotels
Concur has connected to BCD Travel's TripSource hotel
solution via a proprietary application programming interface, thereby expanding
both companies' hotel content. Mutual clients will have access to more than 1 million
hotel options around the world, according to the companies. The service is
launching with a pilot group.
Booking.com & TripLink
When Concur TripLink users connect their accounts to
Booking.com, hotel booking data from that site will flow to TripLink
automatically. "The data speaks for itself," said Concur SVP of
global travel products Doug Anderson. "On average, more than half of all
corporate bookings are made out of channel and seven out of 10 people book
outside the program at least once a year, even if they have an online booking
tool."
Concur Travel added Booking.com's hotel listings to its
content in 2015, and the latest integration will be especially useful for
bookings made in Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific, "where the
majority of content is not available in the GDSs," said Anderson.
Booking.com has 1.5 million properties in more than 220 countries.
Concur Travel Update & Alexa
Concur also cleaned up the Concur Travel user interface. If
a particular property has two different prices—one from the GDS and one from
Booking.com, for example—it will appear as a single entry with the two prices.
Previously, Concur Travel would have displayed two separate entries.
Additionally, Concur recently partnered
with Amazon's
Alexa for voice-recognition trip commands.
—Additional reporting
by Amon Cohen