FCM TRAVEL SOLUTIONS has launched a new brand dedicated to SMEs.
The specialist Corporate Traveller division will take on all FCm's new and existing SME clients. The TMC claimed its current UK-based SME clients are worth £150 million of business.
Debbie Carling, executive general manager of FCm UK, said Corporate Traveller aims to be the dominant player in the SME market by 2014.
"It is becoming increasingly important to tailor brands and their associated offering to the needs of a specific marketplace as every customer has bespoke requirements," she said. The former director of a global travel management company has criticised multiple TMCs for ignoring the SME market in the past.
Last year, FCm gained £60 million-worth of new SME business, and it expects the new Corporate Traveller brand will help double that in 2010.
These smaller businesses, spending between £5,000 and £1.5 million a year, will be charged per transaction, with no fixed contracts.
The name Corporate Traveller was Flight Centre Limited's corporate brand specialising in SME business from 1993 to 2004 in Australia and New Zealand, with a smaller presence in the UK, South Africa, USA and Canada.
In 2004, after a number of acquisitions and partnership agreements, Flight Centre put all its business travel operations under the FCm Travel Solutions' banner.