Business Travel News - March 3, 2008 - (Page 6)

NEWS NBTA Raises Lobbying Spending,Hires D.C.Firm BY SETH HARRIS PROFILES IN TRAVEL MANAGEMENT Power Co. Leverages TMC, Online Hotel Bookings American Electric Power’s efforts to consoli- tels,” Huffman said. “A lot of hotels don’t give you date spending data by driving hotel bookings to national rates unless you can show and prove its travel management company and online book- them volume. We have some of those in place ing tool has enabled it to negotiate national ho- now and that’s because we book through one tel contracts with multiple vendors, reducing its source and we were able to give them the data.” average room rates. MeanWhile national hotel conwhile, its customer service levtracts may be commonplace els increased, and it obtained among corporate travel proadditional savings from a 2007 grams, it is an important savtransition to an offsite agent ings achievement for midmarconfiguration. ket AEP, because its hotel To maximize vendor negospending is double its annual tiations and enhance traveler U.S. booked air volume. The security, AEP in 2004 changed atypical gap is due to the its travel policy to require bookColumbus, Ohio-based compaings through its travel manageny’s considerable travel to small ment company, Columbus, towns via ground transportaOhio-based Travel Solutions, untion by its 8,000 profiled travelder the threat of nonreimburseers, 2,000 of whom are frequent, ment, said AEP travel and event according to Huffman. planning coordinator Georgy Last year, AEP switched to GEORGY HUFFMAN Huffman. the Cliqbook online booking AEP travel manager “We were in a cost crunch tool from ResX. Although online at that time and we were lookbooking adoption is around 20 ing at every opportunity to save some money,” percent, the company saved about $260,000 said Jeff Parlet, AEP director of real estate and through lower average ticket prices booked onworkplace services. “Not only were there cost sav- line. Huffman said online transaction fees are 3.3 ings, but there were other advantages of know- percent lower than their offline counterparts. In ing where everybody was and being able to pro- 2008, Huffman plans to drive adoption through vide exception reports and better reporting for online training seminars and increased traveler the back of the business unit.” communications. This year, AEP plans to further integrate its travel program using a single-sign-on traveler COMPANY: AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER and travel manager portal. HEADQUARTERS: COLUMBUS, OHIO Meanwhile, AEP’s shift to offsite agents has ANNUAL U.S. BOOKED AIR VOLUME: $7 MILLION saved less than $50,000 in salaries and benefits. Customer service levels increased as well, because With more precise data, Huffman leveraged AEP transferred back-end support, technology the electric utility’s $14 million annual hotel ex- and telephony services to Travel Solutions. “We were missing out on a lot, whether it was penditure to garner national contracts with its top vendors, InterContinental Hotels Group, the phone systems, workflow management sharing resources and moving labor Choice Hotels and Red Roof Inn. around,” Parlet said. “It’s not only a AEP’s rates, aggregated annually, Access the 2007 Business cost savings, our overall service levare more than $3 million less than Travel Buyer’s Handbook els are up because of that.” average industry room rates, Huffsee btnonline.com/handbook According to Huffman, who man said. Though AEP’s average room rate increased 11 percent from 2006 to conducts annual internal traveler surveys, calls 2007, it remains less than $100 per night. are answered within the first 30 seconds 87 per“When we changed our policy and we were cent of the time. AEP also gauges customer servgoing through one channel, that opened up ice levels through annual traveler surveys. some doors for some national accounts with ho—Seth Harris The National Business Travel Association quadrupled its U.S. federal government lobbying expenditure in the first half of 2007 to $80,000, compared with each of the three previous sixmonth periods, according to federal lobbying disclosure filings. The documents show that in 2007 NBTA lobbied the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration on issues including passenger prescreening, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and biometric passport technology. In the most recent report, which covers Jan. 1 to June 30, 2007, NBTA increased its efforts to address the federal airline passenger bill of rights, taxes on rental car customers, passport delays and “implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.” NBTA executive director and COO Bill Connors attributed the “chunk” of the spending increase to the contracting of Washington, D.C.based Monument Policy Group to handle the association’s lobbying efforts, which were previously handled internally on a part-time basis. Hiring the lobbying firm enabled NBTA to have more “direct contact with the right decision makers on Capitol Hill,” Connors said. While Connors said he “doesn’t see the spending going way beyond $80,000,” overall government relations spending will continue to rise as NBTA increases its focus on state and local issues affecting the business travel industry. NBTA in 2008 has budgeted for 17 percent of its revenues to be allocated to government relations, a 4 percent increase over 2007 and more than double 2006 spending. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time on the traveler tax issue all around the country,” said Connors. “Everywhere some locality decides they need money for some crazy project and they look at the travel industry as a big target.” In addition, NBTA’s lobbying efforts will continue to address the Registered Traveler program, which has been on the association’s lobbying agenda since the second half of 2005, according to the lobbying disclosure forms. “Anything that allows screeners to focus on more unknowns than knowns is a good thing for security and anything that saves business travelers time is a good thing for productivity,” Connors said. ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ 6 Monday, March 3, 2008 www.BTNonline.com Business Travel News http://btnonline.com/handbook http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - March 3, 2008

Business Travel News - March 3, 2008
Industry Masters Eye Travel 2.0
BA, Virgin To Pay For Surcharge Collusion
Inside Track: Continental Gives SEC M&A Outlook
Profiles In Travel Management: Powering Savings
Buyers Embrace Midprice Hotels
BTN Research: Deploying Midprice Strategies
Aviation: WestJet’s Bureau Woos Corp. Canada
Hotels Foresee Slower Revenue Growth
Lodging: Hotel Revenue Up, but Growth to Slow
Meetings Today: Quantifying Attendee Feedback
Corporate Travel World: Blakey to Keynote
BCD, HRG Expand Super-PNR Tests
Travel Technology: Super-PNRs Further Evolve
Executive Dashboard: Saturday-Stays Reborn
Washington Wire: Amtrak Tightens Security

Business Travel News - March 3, 2008