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For the purposes of this discussion I am referring to travel as group air travel for meeting and events. Although most Strategic Meetings Management Programs (SMMP) initially focus on harnessing hotel spend, there is significant opportunity to save money when planning your group air purchasing strategy.
Best practice meeting managers collaborate with their travel manager or Travel Management Company (TMC) to develop a cost effective plan for booking group air for their meetings and events. Costs that are usually a focus of interest are:
- Ticket Price
- Transaction Fees
- Cancellation & Change fees
- Ancillary fees
Typically ancillary fees are now managed and expensed separately, with some organizations reimbursing attendees; while other participants must pay this type of ad-hoc cost out of pocket. However this also distorts the overall financial 'picture' for any meeting or event. No doubt these costs should be addressed, but there are other levers that can be pressed in order to extract additional savings. For example, name change penalties can be an unexpectedly large line item if not planned for and negotiated ahead of time.
Unlike transient travel, group travel requires a greater degree of consulting advice and demands a higher level of customer service, as each attendee is considered a VIP to the company that sponsors their attendance at a meeting or event. And the larger and more complex a group movement is, the more labor intensive it becomes, especially if service levels are to be met, or preferably, exceeded. When working with the agents handling group air remember:
- Provide complete program parameters and air fare approval instructions to the group air booking agents, or put controls into the booking process so that flights cannot arrive too late to get to the opening event, or leave too early to be able to stay for the entire meeting
- Be aware that your corporate negotiated contracts can be used by the third party organization who is organizing the air travel arrangements
- Be sure the agency (and travelers) are aware of the limits of number of employees allowed per flight; you may have to work with your risk management team to help enforce or make exception policy
- Decide on an upgrade policy in advance. The longer the duration of a flight increases the drive for upgrades, particularly for international programs
Although your company may have identified one or two preferred corporate carriers, it may make sense to include one or more additional carriers in order to ensure more competitive pricing for your program. A good example would be an incentive trip to Tahiti, whereby the utilization of mainstream carriers could be limited, and the use of a non-preferred carrier essential to make sure everyone can get where they need to be on time.
When identifying which carriers to include, be sure that various air fare categories are examined in order to take advantage of some cost-effective alternatives.. Using a combination of the following fare options could result in significant incremental savings:
- Negotiated Blocked Space Contracts
- Corporate Contracts
- Zone Fares
- Group Fares
- Meeting Fares
- Free Sell Inventory
Finally, another issue we are seeing today is limited airlift as a result of the contraction of service by many major airlines. Perhaps the airplanes are smaller, with fewer seats, or the service to particular destinations are not 7 days per week. Not only does this pose the issue of high demand with reduced supply, it also exacerbates the issue of business continuity (limiting the maximum number of employees on a single flight). Working with more than one airline will allow more flexibility of schedule in order to provide a more satisfactory experience for your attendees and maximize savings opportunities.
If you don't already employ some of these recommendations when developing your group air travel strategy for meetings and events, hopefully you can institute a few of them in order to bring additional savings to your overall Strategic Meetings Management Program.
My thanks to Yvonne Long at Group Travel Partners for suggesting this topic! (yvonne.long@grouptravelpartners.com)
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