Travel managers used to compile a list of specialist travel functions that they would put on the spec for a travel management company prior to beginning the RFP process.
One of these was the "out of hours" service. No travel manager wanted to be on duty 24/7 — who on the team wanted to volunteer to be on an emergency call rota when the greatest likelihood is that assistance at 3am would be needed only a couple of times a year?
But as anyone who has ever travelled regularly on business knows, itineraries can and do change for all sorts of reasons in addition to client demands — some are external (weather), others self-imposed (arriving at the airport after the flight has closed). The common denominator has been the urgent need for a viable substitute and this has always required the intervention of either the travel department or the TMC.
But Egencia this week changed all that. It has introduced post-ticketing online air exchange for all its clients. According to Egencia, this "covers travellers from all types of companies globally. Travellers can now change flights themselves on either desktop or mobile after they book, with instant visibility on any potential fare changes and penalties."
The tool shows times and details of other suitable flights and gives travellers the option of making the change themselves or through an Egencia travel consultant.
In itself this enhancement may not seem significant — after all, the facility is not the issue — the issue is whether highly-paid executives should have to change their own travel plans rather than rely on the specialist, viz the TMC.
This seems an archaic attitude in 2018. How many people still dictate their correspondence for an executive assistant to transcribe? How many refuse to book their own trips because their time is "too valuable"? So long as both the process and the ability to be client are clear and easy, people would prefer to do their own rather than spending the time communicating the request to another.
In addition our concept of "specialist" and "specialist knowledge" has changed. Once it would have been booking options but modern systems and communications means that travellers can easily have the same access to information as travel consultants. What the TMC can provide the corporate as a specialist has moved on.
Does this matter? It does when we consider the respective expectations and responsibilities of travel managers, TMCs and travellers. Traveller centricity and involvement is increasing but it doesn't necessarily follow that TMCs and travel managers are needed less.
Instead the functions are changing. TMCs and travel managers are expected less to be involved in the process of making specific trips happen but more expectation is on strategic responses, the ability to come up with plans that will deliver to both traveller and corporate business objectives.
This is not the end of transition in roles and responsibilities — much more is on the horizon.