Travel agent performance
Travel agents will always tell you they are sourcing the cheapest fares. Lets face it, they would be silly not to! They may even provide reams of data demonstrating the savings they have made. But agents know that due to the complexity of business travel, clients cannot verify the figures they produce. Read into that what you will!
Audittravel uses for comparison purposes, it’s own database of over 500,000 fares actually purchased for journeys worldwide. Our audits often reveal that although our clients thought they were getting good prices from their agent, they were in fact paying far more than other companies of the same size and sector. Once this was pointed out to them, agents soon improved performance.
Travel agent service
In, dare we say it, the old days, travel agents used atlases and books of airline timetables. They checked on a map where clients wanted to go, and from experience picked the best options. Today its all automated. You just feed in the start and finish points and the computer offers the alternatives. This often leads pressured or “geographically challenged” travel consultants to pick the easiest option for them instead of the best one for the client, and mistakes can occur.
We know of a national organisation that arranged a sales meeting plus accommodation for staff in Cambridge in the UK. Most rooms were booked in the Marriott Hotel Cambridge UK but some late additions had rooms reserved at the Marriott Cambridge Massachusetts USA.
Audittravel checks whether the best form of transport, best start and finish points, and best supplier were used.