In this week’s round-up there’s news and notables from Transat Distribution, which has concluded its annual National Leadership Conference (photo), plus Amex GTB, Egencia, Ensemble, and Navigatr.
Transat Distribution Canada
TDC wrapped up its National Leadership Conference (NLC) last week at the Breathless Riviera Cancún Resort & Spa, attended by travel agency owners, preferred partners and members of the TDC network’s management team. The fourth and final day of the event included a major announcement about a comprehensive redesign of TDC’s gift card program to be launched in mid-May.
TDC General Manager Karine Gagnon announced that the program will be completely digital, with purchase done exclusively online, thereby making the issuance process much easier for owners and their advisors – and customers.
“Without the intervention of the agency and travel professionals and easy to exchange in the agency or by phone: it’s a win-win situation,” she explained. “This gain in efficiency throughout the gift card purchase and redemption process will allow owners to take even greater advantage of this very lucrative market segment, potentially gain the loyalty of new customers and thus generate more revenue for their agency, especially with the new solution for businesses, allowing the purchase of gift cards in bulk via the new website.”
Amex GBT, Egencia
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has expanded its booking options with ground transportation provider, GroundSpan. Now available in Egencia across Canada and the US, the new offering provides corporate travellers more choice and flexibility when scheduling their ground travel.
Egencia’s customers will have access to GroundSpan’s global ground transportation supplier network, which includes multiple vehicle types such as chauffeured sedans, SUVs, and multi-passenger vans. In cities across North America, customers will have the ability to book chauffeured transportation and have access to new booking features, regardless of their company size or transaction volume. Smaller companies, which often don’t have their own preferred ground transportation relationships or negotiated rates, can benefit from these expanded booking options.
Egencia has also revamped its ground transportation booking and travel management offering for customers in Canada and the US. The enhanced user experience enables travellers or arrangers to book ground transportation in three simple steps – search, select and book. Flight details are automatically passed on to the vehicle supplier for active flight monitoring for delays or schedule changes that may impact the traveler’s journey.
The Egencia Analytics Studio enables travel managers to quickly view trends in overall ground transportation spend. They can access the full data set to have a deeper analysis with 50 different data points including active bookings, number of cancellations, distance traveled, location, booking per supplier, and total cost.
“This is a complete redesign of the ground transport booking experience for customers in North America,” says Heather Lisagor, VP of Product Management, Egencia. “These sophisticated updates use our customer’s existing travel and profile data to create an intelligent, efficient booking process. Our new and improved offering provides travellers and arrangers with a seamless experience that won’t disrupt their busy schedules.”
Ensemble
Ensemble has announced that it is delivering profit sharing for members from 2022, at the same time providing the payments faster by increasing the amount of the first payment by 50%. While the disbursal will still be made in two installments, members will receive three quarters of the payout in the first payment. Adding to the increased benefit is that 73% of Ensemble’s top performing members will earn a higher percentage of sales than they did in 2019.
Navigatr
Navigatr Group has announced the appointment of Andrew Dyer as Executive VP of Travel Partner Relations. Dyer will lead this new division of Navigatr Central Services working with partners across all Navigatr brands to drive improved partner relationships and outcomes including the sourcing of supplier inventories across all verticals including air, hotel, cruise, car rental, insurance, and tours & activities.
Navigatr Group includes several travel brands – all of which are operated independently with separate leadership teams for each. This includes Kensington Tours, Travel Edge Network, Travel Edge, Ensemble, and technol and technology company TripArc.
Dyer was most recently head of Expedia Group’s Global Connectivity & Partner Solutions team, with responsibility for connectivity strategy and commercial relationships with global distribution system (GDS) partners and other airline, car rental, hotel, and vacation rental connectivity providers.