Hubert Joly, CWT's new president and worldwide ceo, plans to target hotels and meetings as the “next frontier” to be brought fully under corporates' managed travel programmes.
Mr Joly, who took up his new post in July, told UK journalists that while the airline business was a standard focus of TMCs, the hotel sector was “traditionally under-managed.”
He said only about 30%-40% of business went through managed programmes compared with airlines where most transactions were handled in the corporate programme.
At the same time as TMCs were missing out on hotel transactions, Internet Travel Agents (ITAs) were “making a fortune at the expense of hoteliers and customers.”
Mr Joly said that under the global TMC's new three year plan, CWT 007, hotels and meetings would be targeted.
“What struck us was the magnitude of hotel opportunities. The market is fragmented but profitable and has traditionally been under-managed by TMCs.
“The focus has been on air and we have hesitated to be in this area of hotels. Our aim is to help our clients get the lowest rate by managing hotels and meetings much more aggressively.”
Mr Joly said the other points of the plan were to:
* complete successfully the integration of recent CWT acquisitions
* lead the self booking/automation revolution and cut out inefficiencies
* expand the consulting, programme management and outsourcing services
* further consolidate the penetration of global companies
Mr Joly added more objectives in his presentation which included outperforming the ITAs and getting more penetration of the SME market, especially in North America.
On expanding CWT's consulting services, Mr Joly said agents had in the past not charged for advice and guidance because they were part of the “world of commissions.”
He cited IBM which used not to charge but now gets most of its income from consulting services. CWT would follow that route, he said.
“We are now beginning to charge for our consultation. We are in the process of changing the way we do business,” he said.
* Afull report of Mr Joly's briefing will appear in BTE Analysis next Thursday.