Travel Guides & Articles
Travel Management in the Time of Transformation
Amazon topped BTN’s 2024 Corporate Travel 100 list of
companies spending big on business travel, according to their full-year
U.S.-originating travel spend for 2023, which BTN estimates held steady year
over year at $483 million. There were some movers on the list—PwC jumped from
No. 16 to No. 4 with nearly double the air volume from the previous year;
Walmart jumped 13 spots to No. 31, increasing its previous year’s air volume by
50 percent.
Tactical Traction on Sustainability Measures
Carbon emissions are on the rise for many companies on BTN’s
2024 Corporate Travel 100. It’s not for lack of awareness around the issue, but
simply a fact of life that increased business travel is translating into increasing
emissions. By some measures the optics still look good: the mitigation
activities put in place since 2019 have resulted in good comparisons in the
five-year view. Alternatively, companies are starting to look at carbon
intensity levels for business travel—as measured by some kind of ratio. Often,
it’s carbon emissions per travel dollar spent, carbon emissions per traveler
or, more generally, carbon emissions per company employee. One company among
the CT100, however, “retired” its business travel carbon goals in 2023,
realizing they wouldn’t meet their 2025 goals and with the intention to focus
their energy on more “material” factors in their organization.
Several CT100 buyers meeting in New York last week said
“materiality” was impacting their company’s focus on business travel emissions.
The fact that travel contributed so little to the overall carbon footprint made
it strategically inconsequential to focus on it as a company beyond a checkbox
exercise or giving it some weight in the sourcing process. That said, many
companies among the CT100 aggressively were pursuing business travel emissions reduction
for, and here’s where they focused their efforts:
Alternative Airline Fuel – Many companies in the
CT100 had invested in alternative airline fuels. Some of the most significant
were Deloitte, Google, Bank of America and Shell.
Travel Approvals – A handful of companies had shifted
their demand management strategies to a carbon usage lens, requiring all travel
to be justified in terms of travel purpose and carbon emissions. Note EY, specifically
for its STAT tool.
Carbon Pricing – Companies like Meta, KPMG, Bank of
America and others are implementing carbon pricing or “green premiums” on
business travel bookings. The most advanced systems offer dynamic carbon
pricing based on estimated emissions at the time of booking. Others are using
flat fees.
Carbon Budgets – In some ways the opposite of carbon
pricing, carbon budgets set a limit on emissions for an individual or division,
and hold them to it. How that budget is spent is up to the manager and the
business needs. Check PwC’s effort in Canada.
Individual Carbon Footprints – Education and the
concept of “visual guilt” might be in play at Salesforce and McKinsey. Both
companies are exposing individual carbon footprints to travelers as a heads-up
before travel.
These companies weren’t the only ones trading on higher
travel spend last year. Consulting giant Deloitte, which came in at No. 2, was
up by $15 million in U.S.-originating air spend, which is just 5 percent of its
total air spend now. The firm’s total U.S. travel spend is more than $1
billion.
That’s a lot of spending power, and CT100 companies overall
spent more in 2023 on travel than they did in 2022. The median U.S.-booked air spend
for companies on BTN’s list this year hit right around $75 million—that’s $10
million more than last year’s median spend. The lowest rung on the ladder this
year was Hewlett Packard at $26.5 million in U.S.-booked air spend, whereas
last year’s floor was just $15 million in a market that was still very much in
the midst of recovering business-travel-as-usual activities. That oft-remarked-upon
lag in business travel recovery for the large market was on full display in the
full-year 2022 data.
Today Is a Different Day
Large enterprises have left the Covid-19 era behind.
Everyone is operating in the here and now, with a clear-eyed approach to travel
budgets, program optimization and supplier management. A recent meeting among
Corporate Travel 100 travel managers, hosted by BTN in New York, found
companies focused on costs, for sure, but also intently on the business
traveler experience. What “traveler experience” actually comprised, however, clearly
was in transition among the buyers in the room.
For some, traveler experience still was a question of
measuring interactions, response times and effectiveness of travel management
company interactions. There were noted movements to what TMCs are now calling
“global hubs”—with each of the majors rolling out some configuration of the
service model, which among other benefits allows travelers to call or chat into
agents who can service a booking regardless of where it originated. Other cited
benefits included upgraded telephony systems, enhanced with artificial
intelligence, to recognize traveler or arranger phone numbers and then route
them to the best possible agent to service the anticipated need.
Streamlining those agent-assisted requirements was one
talking point across a spectrum of traveler experience issues that included
irregular operations recovery and measuring travel suppliers against on-time
performance (for airlines) or on-property experiences (for hotels). But one
concept particularly stood out—and that was the idea that traveler experience
might be determined by the absence of itinerary touches and the absence of
special services.
That wouldn’t just be the result of smooth sailing or lack
of itinerary changes. Tech-minded CT100 buyers were in the market for deep
automation, self-service options and personalization within their travel
search, booking and service platforms that would obviate the need to call or
interact with an agent.
“We want to measure traveler satisfaction by lowering the
number of times the traveler needs to reach out to the agency in the booking
process or if they need to change their itinerary,” said one CT100 buyer. “We
want our travelers to be able to use technology and self-service tools, just
like they do in the context of consumer travel.”
And that’s not just an initial “touchless transaction”—CT100
buyers are talking about going touchless throughout the journey.
To that end, a prevalence of CT100 companies are looking to
their travel providers—and particularly their agencies—for innovation
implementation throughout their travel platforms. They want better profile
systems that drill into loyalty numbers and build a dynamic picture of the
traveler based on their historic bookings. They want full content delivered
from multiple channels and—hey there, airlines—they want those customized
bundles you promised as a result of New Distribution Capability, along with
whatever cost savings they can realize from continuous pricing.
The thing is—unless corporate buyers can get visibility into
travelers’ loyalty status, they are hard-pressed to know what they ought to
negotiate for those bundles and how to apply them strategically to their
programs. So they are looking for air partners to work out how to share that
information.
“They say they can’t do it because of [personally
identifiable information],” said one CT100 buyer. “But we have protocols to
share PII data, and we do it all the time.”
The loyalty recognition, booking and amenity choices and
after-the-purchase changes should all be available via intuitive self-service for
straightforward trips and enabled through mobile devices, whether by chat or
quick-click prompts, they said.
Not all travel managers are getting aggressive with technology
solutions, but some who are have gotten serious about it. Companies like
Amazon, Chevron, GE, Meta and Walmart reportedly are pushing for new levels of
optimization—some have changed travel management companies to pursue better
solutions, others are open to doing so if their current partners can’t deliver.
As sophisticated buyers, they are well aware of the drivers
in play.
GE was particularly well-positioned to pursue change, as the
company separated in 2023 into independently operating companies GE Aerospace,
GE Vernova and GE Healthcare, each with separate travel programs. The companies
reportedly tapped into their incumbent TMC’s partnership with new
tech-challenger Spotnana to provide their respective travel management
platforms; Meta did the same and Walmart late last year began shifting its
travelers into the same technology.
Will the CT100 Throw Their Weight Around?
A number of these innovators are CWT clients and stand to be
impacted by the proposed $570 million acquisition of CWT by American Express
Global Business Travel. The proposal remains under an escalated scrutiny
process with the U.K.
Competition and Markets Authority.
Several companies, including Google, which had been a
long-standing client of CWT have left its client roster over the past several
years, opting instead for another of the megas. Eight years ago, CWT claimed 22
of the CT100 companies. As of year-end 2023, it was down to 12 that BTN could
positively identify.
Among the CT100 clients remaining with CWT, at least a third
of them have opted to pilot the Spotnana option, which claims to have rebuilt
managed travel tech from the ground up and has not only been a fast integrator
of NDC direct connects but also operates on an open architecture model that
allows for easier API integration and tech collaboration.
According to two BTN sources with knowledge of current CT100
deals but who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, there
are a few companies prepared to walk away should Amex GBT dismantle the
Spotnana option. “They are keeping their options open,” said one source. With
big dollars in the balance, it’s unclear how that might affect strategic decision-making
at the agency level.
That particular issue will be up to the few, but many CT100
companies are reviewing their tech platforms and experimenting or optimizing
where they can.
Channel Competition Undermines Program Relevance
One of the biggest reasons for tech experimentation is the
toll NDC stands to take on managed travel programs if agencies can’t bring full
content to bear within the booking tools. “I found it cheaper on the
internet”—seemingly the mantra of managed travelers everywhere—has gotten more
intense as continuous pricing and special fares sit on the sidelines of managed
travel for buyers who can’t or won’t integrate NDC. One buyer, speaking in
confidence at the BTN Innovate summit in New York last week, said she compares
in-program to out-of-program prices weekly, and is dismayed by what she
continues to find.
No. 80 Takeda piloted direct-booking strategies to see how
to capture off-channel reservations and feed them back into duty-of-care and
service protocols. Toyota Motor North America is collaborating with Deem on
NDC, Oracle made major headway with GetThere, Sabre and CWT and is saving money.
Salesforce is working toward customized bundles with its airlines, Amex GBT and
Concur T2. Other big companies are looking to change booking tools,
specifically, but did not yet go on the record regarding their searches.
It’s not always just the booking tool, and CT100 buyers
urged airlines and TMCs to find a way to collaborate more effectively to
deliver solutions. But buyers may need to be involved for a while as the
industry continues to transform at this level.
One buyer who has spent upwards of five years transforming
her firm’s program said she continues to sit with tech providers, travel
suppliers and users on a weekly basis to ensure their transformation efforts
are working as designed. “I look forward to the time when we don’t need to meet
every week,” she said, but, for now, that’s the attention managed travel
transformation will take when you’re in the big leagues.
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Find Sunflowers In Full Bloom At These Places In India This Month – Travel and Leisure Asia
Find Sunflowers In Full Bloom At These Places In India This Month Travel and Leisure Asia
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Wego India Innovates with Technology to Streamline Travel Search, Address Trends, and Drive Post-Pandemic Growth
Friday, July 11, 2025
Wego India, a prominent metasearch engine in the travel industry, is revolutionizing the way Indian travelers plan and book their journeys by leveraging cutting-edge technology. According to Bernard Corraya, General Manager of Wego India, the company’s focus on technology and customer experience has been pivotal in enhancing travel search and expanding options for Indian users.
In an exclusive interview with TTW, Bernard Corraya, GM of Wego India, discussed the company’s innovative approach to revolutionizing the travel experience for Indian users. He highlighted Wego India’s integration of real-time APIs, offering seamless flight, hotel, and train bookings. The platform now features flexible fares, multi-carrier itineraries, and a growing focus on experiential accommodations. Corraya also emphasized Wego’s efforts to deliver personalized travel recommendations using machine learning. As India’s travel industry recovers post-pandemic, Wego is contributing to both domestic and outbound tourism by offering flexible, competitive options and a streamlined travel ecosystem.
Wego’s platform aggregates real-time data from airlines, hotels, rail operators, and OTAs through API integrations, ensuring users have access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive options available. This enables the search for flights, hotels, and trains to be smooth and seamless. A significant addition in early 2024 was the integration of a train-booking service, which directly pulls IRCTC availability, allowing users to search for train tickets alongside flights and hotels. The service is designed to allow users to filter by various preferences, such as class, departure time, and fare type, and even complete payments without leaving the platform. Underpinning this service is a robust infrastructure that ensures that search results are up-to-date, reducing booking friction and improving the user experience for Indian travelers.
Looking ahead to 2025, Wego India has observed key trends in travelers’ preferences. Indian users are increasingly opting for flexible fares, which offer refund and rescheduling options, as well as multi-carrier itineraries for better convenience. Additionally, premium-economy seating is gaining popularity for medium-haul flights as travelers seek more comfort. On the hotel front, there is a growing demand for experiential and long-stay accommodations, particularly in tier-II and tier-III cities. The preference for boutique properties and serviced apartments—combining home-style amenities with hotel services—reflects a shift in how Indian travelers want to experience their stays.
To ensure competitive pricing and a wide array of options, Wego India utilizes a dynamic pricing engine that aggregates fares from multiple sources, including direct airline APIs, global distribution systems, and third-party OTAs. This ensures that Wego India users have access to the most competitive prices, along with the flexibility to explore both standard and exclusive package deals.
The company has also embraced the demand for personalized travel recommendations. Wego employs machine-learning algorithms that analyze a user’s past searches, bookings, and travel preferences to present more tailored options. This creates a more personalized experience, allowing users to discover flights, hotels, and destinations that match their individual needs. Additionally, the homepage features “inspiration modules,” offering curated destination guides based on collective trend data.
As India’s travel industry recovers post-pandemic, Wego India is playing a crucial role in facilitating both outbound and domestic travel. With the rise in domestic tourism and outbound travel, Wego India has integrated self-drive rental services through a partnership with Zoomcar, further enhancing the convenience of travel. The company has also worked to make the booking process contactless, ensuring safety and flexibility for travelers. By aggregating multiple travel services—flights, hotels, trains, and self-drive rentals—into a seamless ecosystem, Wego India is paving the way for future growth in both leisure and business travel.
1. How is Wego India leveraging technology to enhance the travel search experience for Indian users?
Wego India operates a robust metasearch engine that aggregates live inventory from hundreds of airlines, hotels, rail operators and OTAs via real‐time API integrations. In early 2024, Wego introduced an integrated train-booking service—pulling IRCTC availability directly into its app and website—to complement flight and hotel search, allowing users to filter by class, departure time and fare type, then complete payment without leaving the Wego platform.
Under the hood, a combination of low-latency caching, incremental data polling, and predictive algorithms for ticket-confirmation probabilities ensures that search results remain both comprehensive and up-to-date, significantly reducing booking friction for Indian travelers.
2. What trends are you seeing in Indian travelers’ preferences for flights and hotels in 2025?
Users increasingly prioritize refundable or “flex” fares, multi-carrier itineraries and premium-economy seating for greater comfort on medium-haul routes. Meanwhile, hotel searches reflect a clear shift toward experiential and long-stay accommodations: demand for boutique properties in tier-II and tier-III cities is rising, and extended-stay travelers are booking serviced apartments that blend home-style amenities with hotel-class services.
3. How does Wego India ensure competitive pricing and comprehensive options in a highly dynamic market?
Wego’s dynamic pricing engine continuously polls multiple fare sources, direct airline APIs, global distribution systems and third-party OTAs, refreshing rates every few minutes to capture flash sales and limited-time bundles.
By presenting these aggregated deals side-by-side with standard fares and surfacing exclusive package rates, Wego India guarantees that every search surfaces the broadest choice at the most competitive price.
4. Can you share how Wego is addressing the growing demand for personalized travel recommendations in India?
To move beyond generic search results, Wego deploys machine-learning models that analyze each user’s past searches, bookings, trip durations and demographic signals. These algorithms rank flight and hotel options in order of likely affinity considering preferred cabin classes, budget bands and even seasonal travel habits, while “inspiration modules” on the homepage deliver hand-curated destination guides based on collective trend data. The result is a bespoke planning experience: rather than wading through hundreds of options, users are presented with personalized suggestions that align closely with their unique preferences and travel histories.
5. How is Wego India contributing to the recovery and growth of India’s outbound and domestic travel markets post-pandemic?
As India’s travel industry rebounds, with outbound trips climbing sharply throughout the year and domestic tourism leading the recovery, Wego has expanded its rail-booking service to capture intra-India travel demand and partnered with Zoomcar to integrate self-drive rentals directly into its platform.
By aggregating flights, hotels, trains and self-drive vehicles into one seamless ecosystem and by championing contactless booking pathways and flexible cancellation policies. Wego is empowering both leisure and business travellers to plan safe, autonomous journeys across India and beyond.
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Do not travel to Iran: US issues dire warning as detention, terrorism risks grow
In its starkest advisory, the US State Department has urged American citizens not to travel to Iran “for any reason,” citing an escalating pattern of wrongful detentions, threats to civil aviation, terrorism, and misleading surrogacy services.
The updated Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory comes amid growing tensions and a string of high-profile detentions involving US nationals. “US citizens in Iran face serious dangers,” the department warned. “They have been kidnapped and wrongfully arrested. Some have been held for years on false charges, subjected to psychological torture, and even sentenced to death.”
American citizens — especially dual US-Iranian nationals, journalists, students, and business travelers — are being targeted without warning or evidence of any crime, the government said. The advisory emphasized that “having a US passport or connections to the United States can be reason enough for Iranian authorities to detain someone.”
There are currently no formal diplomatic or consular relations between Washington and Tehran. In the event of arrest or detention, the US cannot directly intervene; instead, the Swiss government acts as the “protecting power” for US interests. However, consular access is often denied, especially to dual nationals.
TERROR THREATS AND AVIATION RISK
The advisory also highlights the increasing danger from violent extremist groups. “ISIS and related groups have taken responsibility for bombings and other attacks in the country. The risk of terrorism and deadly harm to bystanders continues,” it noted.
Due to escalating threats in Iranian airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned US flights to, from, or through Iran. The department urged Americans to consult the FAA’s NOTAM and SFAR alerts for updates on civil aviation risks.
Adding to the list of concerns is Iran’s unregulated surrogacy industry, which, according to the advisory, has grossly misrepresented security risks and US citizenship law.
“Iranian surrogacy providers have also been known to misrepresent US citizenship law,” the State Department warned. “If a child born overseas to a surrogate is not genetically or gestationally related to a US citizen parent or their spouse, the child will not automatically acquire US citizenship at birth and will not be able to obtain a US passport to leave Iran.”
The tone of the advisory is unusually grave, urging would-be travellers to prepare for the worst. Among the recommendations:
– Drafting a will
– Leaving DNA samples with a medical provider
– Establishing a proof-of-life protocol
– Sharing sensitive login and personal documents with family
– Ends
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