MT. LAUREL, N.J. -- Travel One officials said the agency's
recent jump from SRG International to First Business Travel was
prompted by a desire to strengthen its ability to operate on a
global scale.
Travel One last month said it was severing its ties with SRG
[now known as Synergi] and becoming a partner in First, the
Dusseldorf, Germany-based travel consortium and its Saddlebrook,
N.J.-based partner, Hickory Travel Systems. The move marked another
blow to SRG, which lost two of its major partners, Omaha,
Neb.-based Travel and Transport and Total Travel Management, of
Troy, Mich. to Woodside Travel Trust.
The deal is considered a boost to First Business Travel, giving
it a major player in the U.S. market and adding considerable volume
to its corporate base. "It brings a huge, already global, entity
and places it on our system," said Rob Moses, vice president of
First and Hickory Travel Systems. "Its excellent for everybody
involved."
Charles Roumas, executive vice president of Travel One said,
said the switch was less about any problems with SRG and more about
ability of the agency to control its own global travel needs for
its customers. "We are making a very large change in our global
servicing in a very expansive mode," said Roumas. "We are basically
customizing our global network to the needs of our customers."
Essentially, the agreement with First Business Travel allows
Travel One to tailor which agencies it worked with overseas
business. Travel One, whose 1997 travel volume was about $850
million, said it had a growing need to tailor programs specifically
for its larger corporate customers that gave it more control over
who its foreign travel partners were. "We're actually going outside
the bounds of the standard organizations that are there and
selecting partners in each country that are best meeting the needs
of those companies."
Travel One officials said under membership in SRG, corporate
clients with overseas operations were handled largely by others
corporate agencies within SRG. "If our customers had needs in
individual countries we linked up with them in individual
agencies," Roumas said. "In each place we were able to find them
partners to help them meet there needs that we were comfortable
with."
Synergi, based in New York, has annual volume of about $8
billion. Its member agencies have about 2,000 locations in 33 major
travel markets around the world. First has about 1,700 offices in
30 countries around the world.
First is allowing Travel One to work with agencies from within
the organization and from outside the organization. "The change
gives us a lot more flexibility," said Andy McGraw, vice president
of sales and marketing at Travel One.
Travel One is hiring a multi-national account director to help
develop its global travel accounts. Officials said they have not
decided whether the position will be based in the U.S. or
overseas.