One of the major problems facing the managed travel industry is that a growing number of travellers are going outside company travel policy to book their own flights and hotels.
Fares offered by low cost carriers and on highly successful websites like ba.com are often lower than those available from corporate deals with airlines.
Throw in the transaction fee charged by the travel management companies (TMCs) and the gap widens.
If travellers go direct, companies face losing their airlines deals because they can not deliver the promised volume. This could be costly and damaging to hopes of signing any future deals.
One growing trend, partly arising from this situation and reported earlier this month in BTE, is that some companies are giving their travellers a set sum for a trip and letting him or her book as they wish.
But with the rise of the travel supermarkets, like sidestep.com, with hugely powerful search engines to find the lowest fare for any route, the "mis-connecting" is likely to increase. As Duncan Alexander, managing director of OAG EMEA, said: "Fare comparison tools and low cost airlines sites are creating anarchy in corporate airlines bookings," he said.
He revealed that he already always checked the price his TMC gives him for a flight with what websites offered and took the best option.
Self booking is now growing at an "incredible" rate, as American Express said last week, and perhaps up to 80% of bookings in future will be done by the traveller. So just where does this leave the TMC if corporates, which allow their travellers do their own thing, do not want or need travel management?
Mike Platt, managing director of BTI UK, said the first thing TMCs had to do was to get across their value to the client and to the traveller. "The focus is very much on our services being a cost not a value," he said.
Booking was the visible service which the traveller saw. But less visible to the traveller was a range of services among which were IT, MI, billing, compliance, security and account management.
This value, he said, had to be communicated to all stakeholders or they would not understand the reason for the cost.
But the increasing range of alternatives and the ability to book direct has created a new problem. If companies wanted their travellers to use their preferred supplier, would they be prepared to mandate it? These preferred suppliers included the company's TMC.
Mr Platt said this was the "most vexing issue for clients and for the TMC." It is also becoming a more urgent one.
Some corporates might do go down this path of making travel policy mandatory with penalties that might include a refusal to re-imburse the expenses of those who go outside policy.
But others will not. Some will turn blind eye. Some, as we have seen, are already giving travellers a set sum for a trip.
If more companies allow travellers this freedom, it will leave TMCs looking for a different role. Mr Platt argues that TMCs have evolved over the year and to survive, will – must – continue to do so.
"Our services are expanding, including people tracking and global solutions…Concierge servicing is available, account management has moved to business management…There is a quantum leap in skills," he said.
The next step, he argues, was to evolve into a corporate services company where the skills learned and applied as a travel management company could be used in different areas. These include skills in change management, process re-engineering, consultancy, outsourcing, global integration and payment/reconciliation systems.
"It's a new world and new markets in areas where we are now skilled and with which we are familiar," he said.
In other words, while the core travel functions would remain as needed, the TMC would move into areas outside travel.
There is already a clear indicator of this. BTI, which strands for Business Travel International, will change its name next month to the Hogg Robinson Group – HRG.
There's no mention of travel.
But it is a step that the major TMCs can probably make. The smaller ones might find it less easy.