Reduce corporate travel costs with dynamic price tracking technology and advanced travel spend analytics.

5 Ways to Save THROUGHOUT THE TRAVEL LIFECYCLE

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The travel marketplace is reaching new levels of growth and suppliers are applying increasingly sophisticated pricing technologies. This creates a significant challenge for corporate travel and procurement managers to control costs throughout the travel lifecycle—from airfare and hotel bookings through supplier negotiations.

According to the Deloitte 2018 Travel and Hospitality Industry Outlook, the global travel industry is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world (see data at right).

With airlines and hotels continuing to segment their offerings with more products and sophistication—looking to attract the largest customer base possible at the highest price points—travel management professionals need to be at the top of their game.

This Travel Advantages paper outlines five powerful ways that travel professionals can use dynamic price tracking technology and advanced travel spend analytics to achieve greater savings, increased traveler program compliance and more productive supplier negotiations.

Travel spending growth and marketplace complexity drives a greater need for savings.

Corporate travel spending

for 2018 is expected to surge 6.1%

Hotels are projected to sustain 5–6% growth in 2018, with a record

breaking $170 billion in gross bookings

Global gross travel bookings in 2017 reached

$1.6 trilliion

1 Pre-Booking Savings

When travelers think they can find better prices on their own, in-program booking compliance suffers. Not only does it result in travelers wasting valuable work time searching travel booking sites independently, the ongoing volatility of prices after booking means employees who book on their own usually don’t get the lowest final prices.

Dynamic price tracking reveals that 11 percent of airline tickets and 12 percent of hotel bookings have subsequent price drop opportunities which are not captured when employees book out of program.

A 2018 analysis by The Adlhoch Group uncovered a significant financial impact of time wasted when employees independently search and book airfare and hotel rooms outside of their travel program. For companies with 2,500 employees who travel frequently, the analysis estimates that nearly $775,000 of annual work time is wasted during travelers’ independent search and booking. For global organizations with 7,500 frequent travelers, the estimated value of annual time lost reaches a staggering $2.3 million.

Cost savings is not the only factor in the need for greater in-program booking. Failing to establish safety and security measures through proper booking creates a substantial duty of care gap, leaving travelers and organizations vulnerable. According to a GBTA Foundation 2017 report, How to Close Risk Management Loopholes, 29 percent of travel managers surveyed say they don’t know how long it would take to locate all their travelers should an incident occur.

Using leading-edge technology that dynamically tracks prices and sends instant savings alerts is the best approach for achieving the greatest ongoing cost savings and in-program booking compliance. The shared accountability between travelers and travel managers also helps companies proactively improve duty of care standards.

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Shell saved an average of $292 per rebooking

SAVINGS PROFILE

Yapta’s dynamic price tracking technology has proven to be one of Shell Oil’s most effective cost-cutting initiatives for business travel. Using FareIQ, Shell gained savings of 2.25 percent of total airfare spend, and achieved $292 average savings per rebooking.

Yapta’s technology also helped reinforce the advance booking behavior that Shell endorses.

“I know that fares change on a regular basis, and we wanted to figure out a way to identify and act upon the savings. We were also being challenged by employees who were telling us they could find lower airfares out in the market.

“Now we can say, ‘yes you can have the confidence of booking in advance knowing that if the price drops, we’ll catch it and reissue those tickets for you.’ Yapta is delivering bottom line savings, and it has a direct impact at the budget level for our business travelers.”

Cindy MorseCorporate Travel Services Manager

Shell Oil Company

2 Post-Booking Savings

Travel management professionals often struggle with the ongoing challenge of demonstrating their support of company cost-cutting initiatives, without diminishing the quality of their travel programs.

Applying dynamic price tracking technology is a key savings methodology that protects the traveler’s experience. From the moment of purchase through the day of departure, Yapta dynamically tracks prices on all of a company’s booked airline tickets and hotel rooms, sending instant savings alerts when prices drop. Yapta’s FareIQ specifically tracks travelers’ same flights and same cabin classes. RoomIQ tracks the traveler’s same hotel, providing visibility to rate-level amenity gains/losses, and detailed room type info. This assures no disruption to the traveler’s experience.

The savings with FareIQ and RoomIQ are surprising and substantial—an average of $369 per trip. FareIQ identifies savings on 11 percent of tracked tickets with average savings of $260 per ticket. RoomIQ identifies savings on 12 percent of tracked bookings, with average savings of $109 per stay.

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For years, Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. manually spot-checked prices in an effort to identify lower airfares and hotel rates.

By using RoomIQ and FareIQ, Munich Re was able to escape this time-consuming manual effort and discover an even greater level of savings. Munich Re realized a 2.99 percent savings on hotel travel spend and 1.29 percent on airfare. Their corporate travelers enjoyed a seamless, uninterrupted travel experience.

“It’s not unusual to see a single international ticket yield a savings of $2,000 to $3,000. This is real savings. My travelers never complain, and management loves the savings we’ve achieved.”

Jim SavarinTravel Procurement Manager

Munich Re

Munich Re saved an

average of$381 per trip

$303 Savings perairline ticket

$78 Savings perhotel booking

3 Post-Travel Savings

Once a business trip is over, getting to the root of travel spend inefficiencies can be tough. With the right information, ongoing program management can improve—from establishing policies and identifying efficiencies to monitoring company-wide travel compliance.

The clearest way to improve corporate travel program performance is having access to real-time point-of-sale data. This savings data available from Yapta enables travel management professionals to see, at the time of booking, what else was available when travelers booked. Evaluation reports highlight when travelers are not making good booking choices, and if not, whether it’s due to non-compliance or rate availability.

According to an Aberdeen Group 2017 Knowledge Brief on T&E management, visibility is especially important. Insights into traveler behavior can provide the early warning to an issue that’s needed in time to allow corrective action. This responsiveness is noted as a contributing factor to high compliance levels.

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Leverage real-time point-of-sale travel

program data.

4 Supplier Performance Analysis Savings

Yapta travel spend analytics captures and presents supplier performance data across three key data points: time of booking, time of price change alert, and time of travel completion.

At the time of booking, supplier analytics captures the available negotiated supplier fares, any superior fares available from the supplier and the actual fare booked to determine the value impact of negotiated rates.

At the time of price change alert, supplier analytics captures the booked supplier rate and new supplier rate to determine the durability of supplier negotiated rates.

At the time of travel completion, supplier analytics captures performance data that helps travel management professionals structure better sourcing strategies.

These analytics also enable easy comparisons of a company’s travel program performance relative to peers and best-in-class industry practices.

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ABB, Inc., a pioneering technology leader in power and automation, has operations in approximately 100 countries and 132,000 employees worldwide. With frequent travel to Scandinavian destinations, as well ABB’s headquarters in Zurich, the company was focused on reigning in its international travel costs.

In just over a year using Yapta’s FareIQ and RoomIQ, ABB North America realized approximately $750,000 in savings on its combined airfare and hotel spend, a 2.27 percent reduction, with average realized savings per trip of $164.

“It’s a win-win situation with Yapta. We’re very concentrated on the savings, but we don’t pay until we save—so for us, it’s a no-brainer. Looking at what Yapta can save you, I don’t know how you could choose not to use it.”

Suzanne MushManager of North American Travel OperationsABB

ABB saved $750,000 on airfare and hotel spending in their first

year using Yapta.

5 Negotiation Savings

Travel spending is frequently the second-greatest controllable expense for a company. As a constant target for cost-cutting efforts, it is difficult for travel management professionals to achieve cost reduction mandates while ensuring uninterrupted traveler experiences.

According to the 2017 ProcureCon Travel Benchmarking Report, significant challenges exist around sourcing the right suppliers, consolidating local and regional activity, and developing a strategic approach that maximizes value as opposed to simply attempting to cut costs.

There is plenty of room for improvement, with 44 percent of respondents surveyed for the ProcureCon report indicating that their travel spending is managed, but not optimized. The unique nature of travel needs is recognized as being a complicating factor.

While substantial savings can be achieved through better sourcing strategies, it’s challenging to break from traditional methods. Annual RFP processes and SLA negotiations are expected by company leadership to demonstrate thoroughness, yet are labor-intensive and time-consuming. Additionally, it can be difficult to determine which efforts will yield the greatest savings and program benefits.

Using advanced travel spend analytics can help travel professionals streamline and optimize their supplier negotiations. Easily identifying which vendors, properties and markets are performing as contracted—and whether their rates are truly competitive—helps travel managers quickly prioritize which negotiations will provide the greatest value. It also helps clarify which suppliers should be added to, or removed from, a travel program—or whether an RFP process with certain suppliers is necessary at all.

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PERFORMANCE METRICS

Yapta’s Reporting includes real-time access to savings dashboards, email summaries and comprehensive reports that detail both identified and realized savings.

Yapta’s TravelAI increases travel program savings by providing price data for airfares and hotels that were available at the time of booking, up until the time of travel. It also delivers competitive benchmark cost data for those bookings. These powerful data insights help improve the effectiveness of strategic sourcing programs.

Combining advanced travel spend analytics

with dynamic price tracking can save you 5-7% of your travel budget.

Yapta’s mission is simple. We help businesses reduce travel costs.

Our technology is leading edge. We provide real-time price tracking of airfares and hotel rates across the globe. Our advanced analytics deliver insights from more than $15 Billion in tracked travel spend.

Our customers are world class. 8,000+ customers, including 125 of the Fortune 500, have realized over $200 million in travel savings.

For more information:

Yapta.cominfo@yapta.com(206) 625-2301

©2018 Yapta, Inc. All rights reserved. yapta.com