Air Sourcing Moves Out of the Slow Lane

The big bottleneck in airline sourcing projects is the time and cost of entering detailed airline contract terms.  That will soon change for the better.

Fayrnet, a product of Volaro, automates the loading of airline contracts into GDSs.

In speaking today with Patrick Healy, Volaro’s Director of Sales and Distribution, I discovered that this tool could  – and should – be easily adapted to handling corporate contracts and proposals from airlines.

Healy says it handles Category 25 and 35 fares (discounts off published fares, and fixed, aka flat, lane or zone fares, respectively).  The demo I saw quickly converted a typical Excel-based airline contract for dozens of fixed fares

I’m back in the analytics game with tClara

Many of you know that I sold my last company, Travel Analytics,  back in 2006.  I had a 5-year non-compete, and filled my time doing a fair amount of speaking and training, and of course writing here on whatever caught my eye in the travel industry.

Along the way I met some great guys at Diio, the aviation data intelligence firm. They know aviation data inside and out, and have an amazing group of really smart software engineers who – and this is vital – are very focused on providing great customer service.

Long story short, we’ve joined forces to offer on-demand analytics for the corporate travel industry.  Our firm is tClara, pronounced tee-CLAIR-ah, a riff on “clarity”.  You can check out our site here.

Our sweet spot is delivering customized reports in three areas: Airline category analysis, travel policy decision support, and trip friction scoring and benchmarking.

ACTE to Certify Travel Consultants

ACTE is committed to certifying travel consultants, citing a “strong demand” from buyers.  Exactly how this will work, and whether it will be effective, is unclear.

I spoke today with Ron DiLeo, ACTE’s new Executive Director, to better understand his thinking behind this previously announced initiative. The key points

Is ACTE Headed in the Right Direction?

ACTE sketched out several initiatives this week from its global conference in Berlin. These efforts hope to:

• Find young talent,
• Provide an accredited global perspective to travel buyers and suppliers, and
• Implement a consultant’s certification program.

Two weeks earlier, ACTE announced its intent to form an angel investor network geared to funding new travel industry innovations.

Looks like Ron DiLeo, ACTE’s new Executive Director, is wasting little time trying to put ACTE on a “wake up and shake up the industry” course.  Gotta agree that our industry needs

Meetings Analytics – A Much-needed Service

If your firm spends much on meetings and events, you should check out Meetings Analytics.  This young firm does the hard and messy work of gathering, scrubbing and analyzing corporate meeting data, and then analyzes it to identify practical savings opportunities.  You my think (or be told) that you already get meeting data reports from your meeting management tools or travel agencies.  Hah!  These guys are way ahead of those old-school reports.  They report their findings in these key areas:

Sabre’s GetThere Starts Consultancy

News of a new travel consultancy made the rounds today.   Travel consultants come and go, about as often as travel managers lose their jobs.  What makes this announcement noteworthy is that the consultancy is launched by GetThere, and is headed by Duane Futch and GeThere’s EMEA Director  Jason Geall.

GetThere is a leading provider of self-booking tools, and is owned by Sabre, a major player in the travel technology industry.  Futch was Wal-Mart’s head of travel management, where he won the prestigious  Travel Manager of the Year award from Business Travel News.  Between Sabre’s money, GetThere’s customer base and Futch’s street credibility, this consultancy has some good ingredients.

What’s not yet clear is