These eventual cuts will be as good an indicator as any of the pandemic's impact on corporate travel volumes for 2021. Other agencies, in other regions with less strict employment legislation, may not be that far behind.
From the outside, it seems the travel management company has gone into survival mode. Post-Covid, it will look a lot leaner, and more attractive to potential buyers.
There could be a trickle-down effect from the elimination of fees to corporate travel management, but it’s unlikely business passengers were front of mind when the airlines made the call.
What prompted actor Will Smith to invest in travel tech startup TravelBank? And what can other companies learn from the way the company has handled the pandemic so far?
Evacuations are difficult at the best of times. Now corporate travel agencies are battling border closures, offline bookings, canceled flights and quarantines.
There's a lot of rhetoric about the need to find business models that work for everyone, as the viewpoints of Tesla and Microsoft demonstrate, but there has been little action so far.
This travel management on steroids approach could backfire with yet another new title that will certainly confuse legacy players. By underlining all the complexities of travel, corporate clients may start to question if it's worth all the effort.