New Concur travel innovations reduce time and costs associated with booking and managing travel

BOSTON - Concur, an SAP company and the world's leading provider of travel, expense and invoice management solutions, announced expanded Concur Travel features to reduce time and costs associated with booking and managing travel, including new TripLink supplier connections, virtual cards, and increased branded fare content. Between 2015 to 2016, Concur reduced the average time it takes users to book air travel by 14 percent, saving businesses an estimated $275 million in labor costs.

"At Concur, our goal is to make travel booking and expense management as easy and seamless as possible," said Tim MacDonald, Chief Product Officer at Concur. "We've found that every second we can take out of the process is worth nearly $1 million. That is money our customers can save and invest back into their business."

Managing business travel has gone beyond basic booking and Concur's connected ecosystem brings key data, tools and apps travelers are using together all in one place. This allows travel managers to see and manage travel, while also delivering a more seamless experience to business travelers.

The Concur Travel updates announced will help travelers further streamline booking and give travel managers greater visibility and policy control, cutting the time and investment necessary to book and manage travel. These include:

• New TripLink supplier connections and increased adoption: Concur TripLink, the industry's first platform to enable companies to capture reservations booked outside a corporate travel system, continues to create more efficiencies and closes the duty of care gap. To date, TripLink has captured more than 2 million bookings that otherwise would not have been visible to travel managers. Nearly half of these were captured in just the past 10 months. For TripLink customers, they are now able to see and manage 9% more of their travel than without TripLink. As Concur continues to expand its TripLink network, travel managers have greater visibility and control, even with bookings made directly on supplier sites. Most recently, Concur cemented agreements with British Airways, Iberia, and WestJet that enables mutual customers to capture business travel bookings made directly on their websites.
• Virtual Cards for hotel bookings: Concur will offer virtual cards, powered by Conferma, for users booking hotel accommodations via GDS. By providing a unique payment number for each hotel transaction, virtual cards give travel managers more immediate visibility and control of hotel spend, and reduces the chance of credit card fraud. Over time, Concur plans to offer the ability to pay for other expenses and establish additional virtual card partnerships to expand this capability to even more customers.
• Branded fares: Concur Travel will feature additional branded fare content which includes major airlines such as American Airlines, Delta, Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa, Air New Zealand (within New Zealand) and more. Branded fares allow business travelers to book low-cost airfares bundled with select travel perks (such as a checked bag or priority booking) and flex options in one purchase.

Concur Travel updates were announced this week at GBTA Convention 2017, the business travel industry's largest annual event, and will become available on a rolling basis over the coming months in 2017. GBTA Convention attendees can learn more about these latest innovations at booth # 1337.

Concur Empowers Businesses to Protect Travelers with Concur Locate and Active Monitoring
Also, Concur announced the availability of Concur Locate and Active Monitoring, empowering businesses to find, inform, and communicate vital information with employees in just minutes during times of crisis and uncertainty.

Business travel is increasing and projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020 according to Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Foundation. With heightened geopolitical uncertainties, it is crucial that businesses take the step to ensure the safety of travelers. This starts with companies knowing where their travelers are located at all times.

According to GBTA Foundation, 42 percent of travelers prefer to book directly on a supplier's website. However, the majority of travel managers rely exclusively on travel data captured through an OBT or TMC to locate their travelers, potentially leaving an incredibly large number of travelers unaccounted for during a crisis. Concur Locate and Active Monitoring is the first integrated traveler risk management solution that draws from the industry's most comprehensive data set including, travel and expense data, itineraries booked direct captured through TripLink and TripIt, supplier e-receipts, and more, closing the duty of care gap and solving a critical need.

While duty of care can involve a company's travel, security, human resources and legal departments, a new GBTA Foundation report on risk management found that travel managers play a key role in fulfilling duty of care, regardless of which department is in charge. During a crisis, 71 percent of travel managers are still responsible for locating travelers and 63 percent are responsible for providing incident reports on impacted travelers.

A significant gap exists today in company visibility and traveler knowledge. The GBTA Foundation report also found: 

• Three in five travel managers rely on their travelers to contact them during times of crisis and uncertainty.
• Meanwhile, 58 percent of travelers say they would contact their supervisor, not a travel manager, if in need of support or assistance due to an emergency or security situation.
• Three in ten travel managers flat out do not support travelers who book outside corporate programs. Another 29 percent do not - know how long it would take to confirm the safety of every employee after an incident.

"Businesses have a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of travelers. From natural disasters to terrorist attacks, if a crisis occurs, it's imperative that businesses are able to quickly identify and locate their employees and determine who may need assistance," said Mike Eberhard, President of Concur. "These are people who are depending on their business leaders to help them in the event something goes wrong. Concur helps solve this challenge."

With the industry's most comprehensive and timely data set, Concur Locate and Active Monitoring empower businesses to proactively monitor risks and quickly identify where all their travelers are, anywhere in the world, at a moment's notice, and communicate with them to ensure their well-being during times of crisis and uncertainty. Real-time reporting makes it possible for travel managers to share comprehensive snapshots with business leaders within minutes.

"As one of the first universities to introduce a mandatory travel booking program, student safety has long been a top priority for The University of Tulsa," said Jason Grunin, Travel Program Manager, The University of Tulsa. "We're continually looking for ways to expand on this. For example, the University of Tulsa's use of Concur Locate is expanding to include our study abroad program to ensure the safety of students traveling year-round."

Concur Locate with the addition of Active Monitoring, powered by HX Global, provides businesses with 24/7 monitoring, communications, and assistance, enabling companies of all sizes to experience the benefits of a global security operations center without the infrastructure and headcount. Previously, a powerful global security solution of this scale was only available at a high cost to large enterprises where resources are managed internally.

"Business traveler safety is a significant priority and growing challenge for companies around the world right now," said Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst and founder of Atmosphere Research Group. "With Concur Locate and Active Monitoring, Concur is uniquely positioned to help companies address this."

Concur Locate, formally Concur Risk Messaging, and Active Monitoring is now available. Concur Locate was initially announced at Fusion, its annual customer conference, in March.