Business Travel March-April-2021

TMCs / Fees
The BTA guide also tell corporates –
and this is where it gets tricky – to provide
their best estimates of spend, travel
patterns, preferred agreements and
transactions.
"Everyone understands it's not an exact
science at the moment. It's a best guest of
how travel will come back, but corporates
need to provide parameters," says Lloyd.
In order to find the right match, the guide
says corporate customers should aim to be
as transparent as possible about the services
they require and what value they are looking
for in their travel programme. After all, some
will want a simple transactional service with
no traveller tracking, reporting or account
management whilst others will be looking
for a full suite of services.
The answer for some could lie in the
emergence of a new type of fee being thrown
into the mix – a hybrid of transaction and
subscription, which will see corporates
paying a fee to cover the basics and then pay
extra for any additional services they require,
plus a smaller transaction fee on top. This
new kid on the block is yet to be officially
named but for now the term 'transcription
fee' is being banded about. Watch this space.
With the crisis
wounds still fresh,
there's been a more frank and
open dialogue from both sides
and a better understanding
of what's required going
forward”
The BTA’s guiding principles to help corporates select the best pricing model for their business
CONSIDERATION TRANSACTION FEE SUBSCRIPTION FEE MANAGEMENT FEE
Your business is very transactional in nature (there and back trips) ● ●
You have a high online adoption rate for your bookings ● ●
Your teams organise a lot of complicated or multi-sector trips that require a lot of support ● ●
Your travellers book the different components of a trip (air, hotel, car) at different stages or use a lot of other services like
concierge, ground transportation or re-shopping
● ●
You have clear pre-trip approval processes ● ●
Each department pays for its own travel ●
Your travellers pay using individual corporate cards ●
You use a central lodged card (BTA or CTA) or invoice to pay for your bookings ● ●
You pay for your TMC costs as a central function within your business ● ●
You have a high proportion of regular travellers within your traveller database ● ●
You are an enterprise customer and/or have dedicated teams for your TMC that services your travel requirements. (Note: the
TMC can fulfil all other aspects of the services as well but a management fee works best with a dedicated team)
You encounter a lot of noise from the travellers within your business about paying TMC fees ●
You have a high proportion of central programme costs through additional services such as account management, online
travel managers, traveller tracking etc
●
You are able to self-initialise an implementation (sign in and go) and do not require a TMC implementation team ●
20 THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.com