Corporate travel clients across Australia are increasing concerned with reducing corporate travel costs in light of the global financial crisis and anticipated slow down in the Australian economy, according to corporate travel management company, BCD Travel.

In its 2008 Travel Program Survey, 97 per cent of respondents cited reducing corporate travel costs as a major priority for the coming 12 months.

In line with this, BCD Travel, which has offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, has noted a significant decline in bookings for overseas corporate travel over the past few months, as local companies become more frugal and the Australian dollar continues its decline against the greenback.

Corporate travel management clients are also tightening their policies on the frequency and type of corporate travel allowed in their organizations, with options such as business class now strictly reserved for longer haul corporate travel flights.

BCD Travel offers significant flexibility and customization with its online corporate travel management programs, allowing clients to change their corporate travel rules with the click of a button. Comprehensive reporting functions also enable managers to quickly identify their organisation’s corporate travel habits and take measures to change them through compliance and communication.

Leading corporate travel agency, BCD Travel, makes managing corporate travel expenses so easy through the use of its cutting-edge online booking engine (OBE).

BCD Corporate Travel uses renowned industry program, Cliqbook, to assist its corporate travel clients with their corporate travel bookings and corporate travel expense management.

Clients can check their company’s corporate travel expenses at any time and can easily generate expense reports for review with the click of a few buttons.

The Cliqbook online booking engine (OBE) also enables BCD Travel to tailor the system to suit each of their individual corporate travel clients, ensuring compliance with things such as preferred airlines and first class travel for flights above a certain number of hours only.

BCD Travel is the third-largest corporate travel management (TMC) company in the world and invests only in the industry’s best online technology solutions, including easy-to-use self-booking travel tools (SBT), to make corporate travel simple for its clients.

Leading global corporate travel management company (TMC), BCD Travel, has earned a significant accolade as Kodak’s first corporate travel management Certified Supplier following a six-month certification process.

Kodak supplier quality manager, Peter Bartell, said BCD Travel had been managing Kodak’s corporate travel since 2003 and had worked closely with them “to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our travel investment”.

Kodak’s certification process evaluated BCD Travel’s efforts in a wide range of categories, including quality management systems, quality of products and services, delivery performance, lead time performance and year-to-year productivity.

BCD Travel is a global corporate travel management company (TMC) operating in 90 countries on six continents and in 1500 locations worldwide. It has three offices in Australia specialising in Sydney business travel, Melbourne business travel and Brisbane business travel.

BCD Travel offers an all-inclusive service to corporate travel clients all over Australia, including planning, booking and coordinating discount corporate travel and accommodation, groups and incentives and individual staff holidays. BCD Travel has a dedicated meeting incentives conferences exhibitions (MICE) division and a leisure travel planning division.

BCD Travel’s Vice-President of Account and Operations Management, Juan Perez, said the certification was “an objective, quantifiable measurement of performance over time” and BCD Travel was “extremely proud to meet Kodak’s stringent requirements on the first pass.”

Company recognized for innovative solution designed to increase efficiency and drive savings for clients

DUBAI, 04 November 2008 – BCD Travel, one of the world’s largest global travel management companies, was chosen as the winner of the annual Innovation Award at this year’s Business Travel Show in Dubai, Oct. 20-21. The company had been nominated for its proprietary solution, TripSourceTM: NetSearch, which integrates Webonly fares into clients’ managed travel programs via the agent’s desktop environment.

The Innovation Award recognizes innovation, ingenuity and true leadership in the business travel industry; the winner is selected by Business Travel Show visitors and members of the travel industry. BCD Travel was announced as the award winner in a special ceremony at the Business Travel Show’s evening event. Greg O’Neil, senior vice president and managing director, Growth & Emerging Markets, for BCD Travel accepted the award on behalf of the company.

O’Neil said: “The Innovation Award is a great honor, and reflects the interest shown in BCD Travel’s TripSource: NetSearch, over the course of the Business Travel Show. This solution responds to corporations’ need to make often fragmented inventory available to travelers without sacrificing the benefits of a managed travel program, especially in emerging markets. TripSource: NetSearch enables greater productivity for our clients by reducing the time that travelers and travel arrangers spend searching for fare quotes from multiple sources. The search and purchase functionalities deliver consistency, compliance and savings objectives.”

The award caps a year of strong growth and successful strategy for BCD Travel in the Middle East. The company’s commitment to innovation, technology and outstanding customer service has quickly achieved results, with significant new client wins, a widely recognized brand and a unique approach to streamline operational processes all playing their part. In some markets, BCD Travel growth has exceeded 200 percent over 2007. “BCD Travel has established itself as a leading business travel specialist in the Middle East,” said O’Neil. “We have invested significant resources to facilitate streamlined and comprehensive service across multiple markets for our customers.

In addition to TripSource: NetSearch, for example, clients can also take advantage of DecisionSource®, which delivers managed travel data throughout the reservation lifecycle to improve business practices, and TripSource: Profile Manager, a Web-based, automated traveler profile system that is fully synchronized with the client’s reservation system, online
booking tool and other data sources.”