Inside the Clubby Business of Government Travel: A Skift Deep Dive
Photo Credit: D.C. and other hubs of government have created a niche for travel service providers that is often hard to break into. Flickr / Daniel Mennerich
Skift Take
Navigating the world of government travel is so complex that it's hard for outside companies to handle it. And even if they can, opportunities are slim for getting big contracts with tens of billions of dollars up for grabs.
Chris Babb, founder of Washington, D.C.-based The Group Tour Company, remembers getting a letter from the federal government inviting him to bid on a major government travel contract.
Babb was intrigued by the dollar amount of the contract — it was large, especially for a small, family-owned business like his. So he began to read through the 100-plus page document he received, which went into the details of the contract, as well as the bidding and approval process.
Babb found the document nearly incomprehensible. “It was written specifically for someone who was already in the government contracting business,” he said. “As an outsider, you would have to basically hire someone who knew about writing proposals for government [contracts] to even get a foot in the door.”
For a small company, the cost just wasn’t worth it. Babb gave up.
This was years ago, but the experience was enough that Babb has since avoided government contracts completely — even when invites p
