Washington - C-level executives speaking here this month at
an Association of Corporate Travel Executives forum said they are intrigued but
wary of "open booking" by their traveling employees. One said he has
agreed to begin an open booking experiment with an elite portion of his
company's travelers.
But not Blackboard Inc. treasurer and senior vice president
of corporate affairs Michael Stanton. While the education software developer
has an entire mobile division staffed by 100 people in San Francisco and led by
a 24-year-old, Stanton said he is reticent when it comes to travelers using
mobile technology to book where and how they please.
"It's something we discuss internally a lot, and the
spirit and the idea of it I wholeheartedly like and embrace, but just from a
compliance and accountability perspective, I'm absolutely terrified,"
Stanton said. "The concept of 'Travel 2.0' has a lot of benefits in
empowering individual travelers, but there has to be enough of a construct that
allows enforcing policies and things of that nature."
In an earlier presentation, Flightcaster co-founder and
independent consultant Evan Konwiser cautioned buyers that the incoming
generation of travelers coupled with the rapid proliferation of mobile
applications bring a certain inevitability around open booking.
"Travel policy as a word is losing some of its
mojo," Konwiser said. "It's no longer about fighting for the margin.
It should be about fighting to provide better products for the traveler, which
earns better productivity, and incentivizing loyalty, which could mean better
costs."
Gregory Raymond, senior vice president of contracts and
administration for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, expressed
concerns similar to Stanton's, but his organization is about to embark on an open booking pilot with 20 travelers. Those travelers will be permitted to book
how and where they please, but must use corporate cards and add itineraries to
TripIt so corporate travel services manager Carol McDowell can keep watch.
McDowell said she would monitor rates and compare them to
preferred supplier pricing.
Travelers still must meet certain policy standards, given
FINRA's role as a financial regulator.
"Somebody can shop around and find a room at the Four
Seasons somewhere at a rate that meets our corporate standards, but as a
company, we don't necessarily want an examiner to show up on a site check and
spend a nice night at the Four Seasons," Raymond said. "Despite that
it might be cheaper than staying at the Hilton, it's not the perception we want
out there."
Blackboard's Stanton his company has no plans to try an open
booking model.
"We don't fully have everything in place to allow it to
open up," he said. "A lot of these ideas are good, but it's going to
be a measured approach that we take."
Stanton said those companies exploring open bookings would
have to be aware of the time travelers spend shopping. Blackboard does not want
its employees to use their time searching at the expense of their jobs, he
said.