The advent of online travel sites such as Travelocity and Orbitz once triggered talk that travel agencies were doomed. However, corporate travel agencies like TMP have survived for a number of reasons, including their ability to obtain volume discounts and the complexity of traveling to multiple cities on different airlines – plus the need to book hotels and ground transportation at each location.
Agencies have also been expanding their menus of services. For example, like many corporate agencies today, TMP offers a security service that enables it to track, whenever a terrorist event or natural disaster erupts anywhere in the world, whether a customer’s employees are in the vicinity and other pertinent information – such as where they’re staying, when they’re leaving and how to evacuate them. Other services include providing detailed analyses of travel spending and offering a mobile flight status system that covers all airlines, making it easy for travelers who have to switch en route from, say, Delta to Air France.
Read more from the News & Observer here.
