Companies become their own travel agencies to save money
— -- Some companies are finding that it pays to be their own travel agents during the recession.
"Every company is looking for the benefit of lowering expenses," says Teresa Asbery, senior manager for travel administration for Wal-Mart Stores.
That lets them buy airline tickets and arrange hotel rooms and rental cars just as a regular travel agency does.
It also lets companies collect commissions on bookings, and in many cases, avoid paying booking or transaction fees to an outside travel agency.
And more companies are looking at doing it, says Mike Premo, a vice president at Airlines Reporting Corp., which does accrediting for travel agencies and serves as a clearinghouse to settle booking transactions.
Premo says the idea is more attractive now because the difference in cost between handling travel in-house and having an outside travel agency do it has narrowed, as more volume discounts on airfares and room rates are available.
"It's been incredibly good for us, in terms of cost-saving," says Belinda Borden, manager of the University of California Travel Center, whose 11-member staff is based at UCLA but books travel across the state system. "Since we've become (a travel agency), we've never cost the university a penny. We're totally self-supporting."
Same as a retail agency
The key for a business becoming its own travel agent is to get accredited by the Airlines Reporting Corp. as a corporate travel department and get an ID number to account for transactions. Any organization, large or small, can do this, Premo says.
An accredited corporate travel department can perform all the same functions as the nearly 20,000 traditional retail travel agencies — though it's prohibited from selling travel to anyone outside the organization. Premo describes a retail travel agency as a seller of travel, while a corporate travel department is a buyer of travel.
