It's rare for a major travel seller to split its business evenly between being a corporate travel management company and a consumer-facing OTA. But that's the model that has evolved at AmTrav (No. 47).
The company started as Cheapair in 1989, selling air consolidator tickets. CEO Jeff Klee said the advent of the internet "was great for me, because I always had a passion for software development."
The company started "dabbling" in the corporate world in the late 1990s when it acquired several corporate accounts from clients who had used the company for personal travel.
By 2011, Klee said, the company had been creating software for its consumer site that offered a good user experience, in contrast to what was being offered on the business travel side.
"We looked at the corporate world and saw horrible user experiences," he said. "And that's when we moved to being a travel management company as well as a consumer-facing website."
Today Klee calls AmTrav a "traditional TMC" going after business travel accounts, with its "sweet spot" being companies that spend between $1.2 million and $5 million a year on travel.
"We think that one of our selling points is our own booking tool, which does about 80% of what Concur does with [what we think is] a much better consumer-style interface," Klee said. "It may not be as sophisticated in supporting seven layers of travel policy, but it is advanced enough in that regard to satisfy the needs of most customers."
Although AmTrav has two separate business models, from a software development standpoint "we are the same team," Klee said.
"But our customer service and sales are totally separate, even physically in different locations," he said. "Most airlines want to work in different ways with Cheapair.com and AmTrav."
The company has extensive proprietary software, including ATOM, its own agent desktop.
"We have our own interface on top of the GDS," said Klee. "Our agent desktop and corporate booking tool have the same underlying technology."
Klee said the combination of companies is working, citing growth on both sides of the business, although AmTrav's growth has topped Cheapair's for the last few years.
Looking ahead, Klee said he has big concerns about the TMC business because "a lot of TMCs take the status quo for granted" and are unwilling to change.
"We're coming to a point where companies will be able to separate bookings from other services like duty of care," he said. "For the longest time you have only been able to get these services if you booked though the TMC. There are a lot of startups with interesting models where you can get the benefits of TMC services without booking through a TMC, and bigger changes are coming. As a result, the models will have to change."
Note: This report was updated on June 26 to clarify a comment from Klee about his company's booking tool.