Spotnana Leans in on TMC Partnership Ambitions

Since its launch, Spotnana has faced some confusion of where
exactly to classify it in the corporate travel landscape.

The self-described “travel-as-a-service”
platform has won its share of some of the biggest
travel programs in the world as clients, but it also launched a partnership
with one of the biggest travel management companies in the world when
CWT announced it would offer a travel solution built on its infrastructure.
So, some TMCs were left wondering whether Spotnana was friend or foe.

Spotnana over the past few months has leaned heavily into
that “friend” classification, as it has intensified its ambitions to
become the tech platform of choice for travel management companies with the
launch of its TMC product suite as well as the launch of two TMCs’ technology
platforms built on its infrastructure. Spotnana has had clients for which it
operates as a stand-alone TMC, but its growing stable of TMC partners is now
where the company said it is prioritizing its growth. It plans to continue to
support those existing Spotnana TMC customers “until they choose one of
our TMC partners for TMC services,” according to the company.

In May, Spotnana launched
Spotnana Cloud for TMCs, a suite that includes access to Spotnana’s
content, its online booking tool and TMC management tools. The aim is to allow
TMCs “to deliver a better value proposition to the end customer, and also
to deliver at a cost structure that’s compelling,” Spotnana CEO Steve
Singh said.

Reducing that cost structure will be one of Spotnana’s
primary areas of focus over the next year, Singh said. “We want to be able
to make sure Spotnana Cloud allows the travel operations portion of TMC to
operate as effectively as their existing back-office infrastructure at a
fraction of the cost structure,” he said.

That savings, in turn could either be passed on to TMC
customers or re-invested in the business in sales or technology investments as
the TMC sees fit, according to Singh.

Spotnana’s other primary area of focus over the next year
will be continuing to “invest aggressively in content,” and ensuring
that content is serviceable, he said. “We think it’s critical that all
content, no matter where it originates, is available in Spotnana,” Singh
said.

In the meantime, two TMCs recently have launched offerings built
on that platform. Direct Travel, which was acquired by Singh’s investment group
last year, debuted
the “Travel Edition” of its Avenir technology offering, which
combines the Spotnana-powered booking platform with Direct Travel’s services.
JTB Business Travel also
launched its own branded platform built on Spotnana, Teal.

Direct Travel chief product officer Sarah Kuberry Martino
said the client base using Avenir Travel Edition is already in the “high
double digits,” with a new customer launching “pretty much every
day,” which she said spoke to the ease of getting customers live. Some of
the early feedback has highlighted the simplicity of use, content visibility
and self-servicing capabilities, she said.

Consulting firm ZS has been among the earliest adopters of
Avenir, with the company having made the decision to move to the Spotnana
platform even before Singh had announced the Direct Travel acquisition, ZS
travel lead Sarah Hayden said. The company “wanted that strong technology
base for our program” and went into a request-for-proposal process to
verify that Spotnana was the right choice, according to Hayden. Its
capabilities in user experience, content and data capture validated that
decision, she said.

“We wanted a very tech-forward approach in the program,
with automation in the hands of the travelers,” Hayden said. “We
wanted them to book and self-service and not feel inclined to go on Google
Flights to price compare.”

Hayden said ZS “absolutely felt the support” from
Direct Travel “to comb through every aspect of our program”
throughout the implementation. The company provided daily feedback from travel
arrangers and travelers to help hone the tool, as well as provide a wish list
for an “enhancement roadmap,” she said.

Martino said the Avenir Travel Edition launch was “step
one,” with plans to add additional value, products and experiences. Direct
ATPI, the global travel management organization that Direct Travel formed with
U.K.-based ATPI, announced plans to launch the platform across the U.K. and
Europe in the second half of this year, with a global rollout planned
throughout next year.

Some of the key enhancements will be around data, as Direct
Travel has been “massively investing” to revamp its data platform
from the ground up, adding in new technologies such as Snowflake, Martino said.

“It’s going to basically allow us to create a whole new
set of data services, insights, recommendations and predictions, and then tie
those things into making them actionable on the Spotnana platform,” she
said.

For the traveler, that could mean pulling recommendations
from data specific to their booking activity—if a traveler was booking a flight
to Chicago in the winter, for example, it could advise them to plan around what
likely will be a delayed flight, she said.

Direct Travel also is working on a set of tools and
capabilities for travel managers that it is loosely calling the “travel
concierge,” Martino said. That would take some tasks off a travel
manager’s plate, such as answering commonly asked questions, to free them up
for a more strategic role.

For JTB Business Travel, launching Teal was a continuation
of its work with Spotnana. Last year, it partnered with Spotnana to
bring the booking platform to its Goodwings brand, a sustainability-focused
travel management platform based in Copenhagen.

The Teal offering positions JTB Business Travel “to be a
leading TMC in the midmarket,” as a limited number of TMCs can support
global programs, and the largest TMCs might not be able to give the same level
of attention to the smaller programs compared with global enterprise clients, JTB
USA VP of global business travel Geert de Boo said. Teal implementation in
multiple countries is relatively fast, and that is boosted by its multiple
owned points of sale—Teal is currently available in 15 countries and expected
to increase to 25 countries where JTB Business Travel already has points of
sale by the end of the year—that enable a consistent global experience, he
said.

“Rolling out a global program across many markets has
become a lot easier in terms of implementation, but it also gives a lot more
control to the travel manager,” de Boo said.

While JTB Business Travel expects some clients using its
legacy travel services offering will want to shift to Teal technology, the big
opportunity will be reaching out to new market segments, he said.

“It’s a good fit for any company, but we see particular
interest from fintech, technology companies, startups, biopharma, which have a
different corporate culture in how they procure travel and what’s important in
terms of travel experience,” de Boo said. “We see changes in the
industry, new generations coming into the workforce that grew up in a
tech-based world, and this allows us to service their needs and be ready for
tomorrow.”

Besides JTB Business Travel and Direct Travel—and CWT,
though what would happen to that relationship should CWT successfully merge
with American Express Global Business Travel is not yet clear—Spotnana’s
currently listed TMC partners include Cadence, which
announced its partnership in March, and Solutions Travel, which launched as
the
first TMC built from Spotnana’s technology infrastructure. As a testament
to the speed of deployment of Spotnana technology, Greeley Koch, managing
director of 490 Consulting, highlighted Solutions’ rapid growth at BTN’s Tech
Talk event in Chicago last month.

“It’s less than a couple of years old and is already a
$100 million travel agency, operating in 30-some countries around the
world,” Koch said.

While Singh said that “at some point, we would love all
TMCs to be on our infrastructure,” the company for now has a
“methodical” growth plan with TMCs. The focus is more on ensuring
those that move to the platform are successful, he said.

“I don’t know that we’re overly focused on whether we
have three or five or 10 TMC partners in the next year,” Singh said.
“As long as they are consuming all the benefits of Spotnana Cloud, we’re
happy.”