The National Business Travel Association is holding its annual conference in Los Angeles this week, and many technology vendors have announced new and updated products at the event.
The National Business Travel Association has introduced a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Toolkit and a new CSR component of the NBTA Foundation’s Managed Travel Index® & Benchmarking Tool.
Both tools were created with the support of Advito, the consulting division of BCD Travel.
The new NBTA tools are designed to help travel managers meet the practical challenges associated with launching and measuring the success of travel-related CSR initiatives.
The CSR Toolkit enables companies to examine CSR as it relates to travel management, including a five-step implementation plan; detailed reference guides on calculating carbon emissions, managing travel demand, procuring sustainable travel services, offsetting travel-related emissions and incorporating duty of care into managed travel programs; and profiles of companies that have implemented responsible travel-management initiatives.
The toolkit is being distributed on thumb drives to all travel-buyer attendees at the 2008 NBTA Convention in Los Angeles.
The CSR benchmarking tool requires the user to complete a self-assessment, answering 15 CSR questions measuring how their programs are structured. Based on the responses, the tool assigns each program a CSR maturity level from zero (non-existent) to 5 (integrated).
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Amadeus has created a new team dedicated to serving the needs of travel management companies, multinational agencies and online travel agencies in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
To lead the effort, Amadeus has appointed 20-year IBM veteran Dwayne Ingram as executive vice president for the Amadeus Multinational Customer Group serving the Americas. Based out of Amadeus' Chicago center, Ingram will be responsible for leading sales, account management and travel technology efforts.
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Amadeus has also expanded its partnership with business software provider SAP. The companies have agreed to market an enhanced travel management and expense solution for corporations.
The solution is composed of the travel expense management functionality in the SAP Travel Management application and Amadeus e-Travel Management. The companies said their partnership approach responds to customer demand for open, modular travel-management solutions that can work with their existing expense systems rather than alternative, stand-alone platforms.
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StarCite, a vendor of meetings-related technology, has signed a preferred-partnership deal with Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) and has inked an agreement with Amadeus.
CWT said it will use StarCite's meetings-management software to implement a consistent, global platform for meetings. The company said StarCite’s platform will enable CWT to enhance its own internal processes, including venue sourcing, data and savings aggregation, in-depth reporting and consulting.
Amadeus will integrate StarCite’s meetings management platform with the Amadeus e-Travel Management booking product. By year’s end, meeting attendees will be able to book travel on Amadeus e-Travel Management directly from the StarCite Attendee Management application when they are registering for a meeting.
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CyberShift has introduced a mobile process for expense-report approvals. The mobile solution, which enables Necho Expense users to create an expense report, now also allows travel managers to review and approve expense reports directly from their handheld devices.
Additional mobile functionality includes the ability for business travelers to create expense reports from corporate charge card transactions or out-of-pocket cash transactions directly from devices such as the BlackBerry smartphone. Charge card transactions include full details such as enhanced hotel folio data.
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Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) has rolled out an enhanced version of its web portal, HRG i-Suite, across North America. The portal now offers the ability to integrate self-booking, data reporting, expense-management and traveler-tracking tools.
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GetThere, the Sabre-owned booking tool provider, is enhancing functionality for travel arrangers with a new web portal. Clients are scheduled to receive the upgrade in August.
Highlights include a messaging tool enabling procurement professionals/travel managers to quickly communicate policy changes to travel arrangers, t-a-glance viewing of trips for the arranger’s 10 most-frequent travelers, roll-over icons alerting arrangers to update a traveler’s profile, and the ability to access and build trip templates.
GetThere estimates that approximately one-third of its bookings, nearly four million transactions annually, are made by travel arrangers.
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BCD Travel is enabling clients to receive flight information on mobile devices.
BCD Travel since 2006 has been receiving FlightStats’ flight alerts at its TripSource web portal. The expanded offering will enable BCD Travel to provide up-to-the-minute flight logistics, alerts and statuses to clients on the road.
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Worktopia has launched its Universal Meeting Solution (UMS), which automates the meeting-planning process. Worktopia said users can search, compare and book space for simple meetings, and arrange catering, AV equipment, overnight accommodations and other amenities in one online session.
Also, UMS provides attendee-management capabilities, powered by SignUp4.com, and meeting activity reports.
For corporations that have pre-negotiated contracts with hotels and business centers, Worktopia offers the UMS-Corporate Edition, which loads company-designated rates, properties and other travel-related corporate guidelines into the system.
As is the case with all Worktopia services, meeting planners are able to search an inventory of thousands of hotels, conference centers and other meeting venues around the world.
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American Express Business Travel intends to launch an online community for the corporate travel industry this fall.
BusinessTravelConnexion.com will bring together industry decision makers, suppliers and experts, said American Express. Executive Travel magazine intends to provide content to the site, and NBTA has committed to become the online community’s first industry content partner.
BusinessTravelConnexion.com will encourage users to participate in online discussion boards, editorial reviews, polls and product-development councils. Features will include a resource center with white papers and surveys, RSS feeds and blogs.
American Express is accepting suggestions for content and features at BusinessTravelConnexion.com.
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Virgin Charter has launched a GDS solution for private jet charter.
"We are launching our GDS solution to meet the unprecedented increase in demand for private charter flights as more businesses embrace private air travel as a productivity tool," said Scott Duffy, founder and CEO of Virgin Charter.
The distribution system includes a real-time pricing engine, which allows buyers to receive immediate quotes from multiple operators across the U.S., said Virgin Charter.
The GDS solution was made possible by recent software integrations with two aviation scheduling systems, said Virgin Charter.