DALLAS & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dallas-based Traxo, the global leader in travel data capture and itinerary intelligence, announced today at the BTN Global Travel Risk Summit Europe that it signed a pair of international travel management company (TMC) consortia: London-based Advantage Travel Partnership is the largest independent travel agent group in the UK, and WIN Global Travel Network, has around 6,000 TMC member locations in 75 countries. Combined, their total 2019 annual travel spend was over US $15 billion.
"When the COVID pandemic lockdowns started occurring, corporate travel managers and TMCs worldwide immediately realized they had serious gaps in their business travel data," said Traxo Chief Executive Officer Andres Fabris. "Despite company policy, employees inevitably had booked their travel 'out-of-policy' or 'off-channel,' and therefore, that booking data was invisible during this critical time.
"As a result, companies had no idea if their employees were stuck in a country that had just closed its borders or had recently returned from a virus 'hot spot,' and needed to be quarantined. Basically, all the missing travel bookings created a last-minute duty-of-care crisis. Subsequently, the most progressive TMCs realised that the ability to service off-channel bookings can actually become a competitive advantage and create a value-added, revenue-producing service."
Through the new "Traxo for TMCs" offering, Advantage and WIN member TMCs will promote Traxo's travel data capture services to their corporate customers, which will enable the corporations to automatically share all of their business travel data, regardless of booking channel, with their TMCs in real time, enabling their TMCs to provide enhanced traveler duty of care, and better auditing of total corporate travel spend.
Advantage Travel Partnership Chief Executive Officer Julia Lo Bue-Said commented, “We’re delighted that Advantage Travel Partnership, with its 200-plus TMC members and the international WIN Global Travel Network, of which Advantage is the majority shareholder, are Traxo’s first UK partners. Duty of care is higher than ever on travel managers’ agendas, and therefore it's absolutely invaluable for TMCs to be aware of their clients’ employees’ travel itineraries in real time, regardless of whether they were booked by the TMC or not.
“Advantage and WIN are committed to providing access to the most comprehensive portfolio of tools in the market to ensure members can best serve the needs of their clients."
Compared to other corporate travel data capture tools that require travellers to manually forward each confirmation email, Traxo's solution requires no training, action or effort on behalf of the employee. The travel bookings, including cancellations or trip changes, are automatically captured as they are made, enabling the TMC and the travel manager to immediately react and make adjustments as needed for risk mitigation and cost savings purposes.
The new "Traxo for TMCs" offering provides corporate travel agencies with GDPR-compliant, seamless access to their clients’ non-TMC booking data. TMCs simply refer their clients to Traxo for implementation, and once live, the non-TMC booking and spend data aggregated by Traxo is instantly available to the corporate's TMC via online reporting tools and API integration. The TMC can then consolidate that additional data into their own applications, analytics, reporting and support services as desired.
About Traxo:
Dallas-based Traxo, Inc., the global leader in travel data capture and visibility, eliminates blind spots and enhances duty of care by enabling corporate travel managers and managed travel agencies to easily track and proactively manage complete omnichannel travel activity in a single, real-time, system of record. Traxo clients and partners include United Airlines, Lufthansa, Easy Jet, TripAdvisor, Chrome River / Emburse, Coupa, International SOS, WorldAware. and many more. The two most recent Business Travel News Travel Managers of the Year use Traxo. With Traxo, corporations enhance traveler safety, maximize savings, and deliver an experience employees love. Learn more at www.traxo.com. @Traxo
About Advantage and WIN:
Advantage Travel Partnership is the UK’s largest independent travel agent and travel management company partnership. Advantage Business Travel TMC’s are each independently owned, but as a collective they produce over £4.5bn of business travel sales each year, making members experts in every aspect of the travel industry. The Advantage membership has around 200 UK corporate travel management companies (TMCs) servicing corporate clients, predominantly within the SME market. In addition, Advantage is the majority shareholder in the WIN Global Travel Network, another network of corporate travel experts, on an international scale. It is a global ecosystem of like-minded TMCs, with an annual collective spend of US$15 billion. WIN Partners are present in more than 75 countries, with the scope to share knowledge and best practices between these corporate travel experts around the world. www.advantagemembers.com https://wintravel.org/