Egencia: what drives their success?

Expedia Inc. is not all about leisure. Hard on the heels of Expedia.com is Egencia, previously called Expedia Corporate Travel, a 6 year-old company that is already the fifth largest TMC in the world. Mike Bor, Managing Director, Supplier Relations, Europe, Egencia, talked to us about what drives their success and their plans for the future.

Egencia has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2002 to become the top online corporate travel agency and the fifth largest TMC in the world. To what do you think you owe your success?  

Our progress has been phenomenal, we’ve gone from strength to strength over the years and are now one of the top corporate travel agencies in the world.

We’re committed to delivering a combination of best in class and full service, with leading-edge technology and a unique inventory.  We offer all the services that a traditional TMC provides and in addition, differentiate ourselves in several ways through our online features. One of the advantages of using Egencia is that travellers and travel consultants are both looking at and experiencing the same thing at the same time, which streamlines the process and improves customer experience.   

Egencia’s online booking technology covers the entire process of travel management, right from the implementation of travel policies through to the booking process and reporting. For example the Egencia Manager helps to monitor and control each step of the process. On the reporting side we have a tool called Egencia Data Mart, which enables companies to facilitate their reporting process. It encompasses all relevant information for any business trip and thus results in a better service experience for reporting, transaction fees calculation and savings monitoring.

We have a team of dedicated professionals who constantly monitor the performance of our products so they areas user friendly as possible. This enables us to achieve the highest online adoption worldwide.

What synergies do you derive from Expedia.com’s brand image? Are there any disadvantages?

Egencia has taken advantage of the technology, originally built for Expedia Inc’s leisure travel business. But we do not rely solely on Expedia.com’s technology as the needs of our customers in the corporate marketplace are different. For example we have built back-end systems especially for the travel manager to create real-time online and consolidated reporting.

The largest disadvantage of being closely related to the Expedia.com brand is also one of our greatest strengths. We have the leading global technology platform, but people often do not believe we also have leading customer service. With hundreds of corporate travel consultants in over a dozen cents globally, customer service is definitely a top priority for the company.

Your original focus was on small and medium sized enterprises, but you now count several Fortune 500 companies amongst your clients. How would you define your present customer base and target?

Egencia is the ideal choice for any company with a managed travel policy that values a premium service. We offer a single, transparent marketplace, which will deliver choice and value, whatever the size of your travel budget.

The key benefits are the same whatever the size of your company. These are: high-quality service through a dedicated account team, improved control and monitoring, cost savings through online adoption and ease of use. We understand how to create an intuitive, efficient service for travellers and travel managers.

Are you in direct competition with the traditional TMCs, in all of their spheres?

Yes, we do compete directly with the traditional TMCs, because beyond our advanced technology we also offer traditional TMC services.

Many corporations, particularly large global corporations, have very set ideas about which providers they wish to use, including which GDS they prefer. Can you offer the same level of flexibility as a traditional TMC?

We do offer customers in Europe and in North America the possibility of working with various GDSs, this enables us to provide them with the best product for their market. We are therefore able to offer our customers the same level of flexibility as a traditional TMC.

Your largest clients are all based in the US. Do the challenges you face outside the US make it harder to secure large clients?

When entering a new market Egencia does so with its leading-edge technology, full service offering and broad supply inventory. The non-US markets do offer different challenges, as we localise our offering and inventory for the specific needs of a particular country. For example, in Europe we integrate with the local train operating companies, while in the US we do not see this need.

Our challenge in Europe is to grow our footprint as quickly as possible. We are currently expanding our global footprint at a rapid pace. Today, we have nine points of sale including US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and China. As part of our strategy to grow our footprint in Europe, we have developed technology and inventory specifically for the region. Recent enhancements include hotel search capabilities, online rail, wider LCC content and our Global Flight Search Platform.

In July 2007, you began to offer the '75 by 75 Guarantee' in which you agree to waive all booking fees if customers do not achieve 75% online adoption within the first 75 days of implementation. How are you able to drive online adoption so successfully and so quickly?

As a result of continued investment in full service and leading technology we have one of the highest online adoption rates in the industry – an average of over 75 per cent across our European client base. Through increasing online adoptions rates, ECT customers achieve average travel cost savings of 15-20 per cent, as well as 10 per cent improvement in internal travel-related cost savings.

We help clients to drive the high online adoption rate through effective implementation processes, travel policy compliance and monitoring and high quality services. An online booking tool offers the opportunity to define and implement a company’s travel policy including preferred suppliers, class of travel, approval process, cost centres structure and anticipation of bookings. A well defined travel policy can help to encourage or even mandate travel bookers to book their trips online.

85% of your bookings are “touchless”. But what about the other 15%? Why do they require agent intervention?

Certain types of bookings, for instance multi-destination trips, are typically touched by a travel consultant to ensure the correct trip is being booked at the best price on the market.

Social networking and new media has been very successful for Expedia.com. Do you see potential for social networking and new media in the corporate field?

Social networking represents a tremendous social and technology phenomenon that is changing the way people interact with each other and the way that businesses interact with their clients. In contrast, though surrounded by change, corporate travel represents a more conservative industry. Given our position as a leader in user generated content in the travel space, (through Trip Advisor and Expedia hotel reviews), we are in the ideal position to bridge these two worlds.

Social networking is part of the next wave of business travel. We have already begun to see the demand for this exchange of meaningful information through the rise of user-generated content. Blogs, hotel reviews, sites like SeatGuru are an example of this trend. The corporate travel industry is in the beginning phase of this evolution. Just as we've led the industry through the wave of online adoption, Egencia will play an important role in channelling social networking and user generated content so that it adds true value to the corporate travel program whether via traveller empowerment or program insight. We believe you can expect to see social networking tools become an even greater part of the business travel process in the next year or two. There will be a larger focus on connecting business travellers to share experiences and information to make not only an informed purchasing decision, but also a successful business trip.

About Mike Bor
Mike Bor has been in his current position since January 2006 having previously been joint Managing Director of Egencia’s UK business.

Prior to Egencia, Mike spent 15 years as Managing Director of World Travel Management. Based in London and Manchester, World Travel became synonymous in the UK travel industry for delivering high quality, consistent travel management solutions to major banks, law firms, insurance and IT organisations. The company was acquired by Expedia Inc in August 2004.

About Egencia
Egencia™ is the #1 on-demand full service travel agency based on the total number of customers booking through the same technology whether online or agent-assisted. It was founded in 2002 with the acquisition of Seattle-based corporate agency Metropolitan Travel and expanded into Europe in 2004 through the acquisition of Egencia, a Paris-based agency. It currently operates in the US, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and China. Egencia™ has a number of Fortune 500 companies on its roster, which represent 30-35% of our business worldwide. In just five years, we have gone from zero bookings to well beyond $1.3B in gross bookings in 2007, and were profitable throughout the entire year. Egencia.com is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE).