Business Travel News - June 29, 2009 - (Page 20)

MEETINGS TODAY Amex, Maritz Ally For Strategic Meetings Mgmt. Solution BY JAY BOEHMER American Express and Maritz Travel this month announced an alliance to jointly develop and market a single strategic meetings management solution. Officials from the companies said they expect to execute the final agreement this month and offer a product to clients by Sept. 1. Officials said American Express and Maritz would share resources, combine product sets, shift employees and jointly develop and integrate technologies to offer the market a single “endto-end” meetings management offering for companies seeking to centralize sourcing, meeting planning and data analysis. The companies said they initially would focus the initiative, dubbed Maxvantage, in North America. Maritz Travel president and CEO Christine Duffy said American Express will “be taking on sales and marketing for strategic meetings management, and Maritz is going to be providing the operation management and technology platform and supplier relations.” The result will be “one strategic meetings management solution for the marketplace that both compa- nies will offer and support,” said American Express Business Travel vice president and general manager of global business partnerships, advisory services and corporate meetings solutions Hervé Sedky, adding that American Express will be “combining our assets, experiences and financial resources with Maritz to offer superior offerings in the marketplace.” CHRISTINE DUFFY Deal exceeds ’90s partnership Amex and Maritz in 1999 initiated a strategic customer referral alliance that was terminated in early 2002 (BTNonline, March 25, 2002). Duffy said the new agreement “goes well beyond what Maritz and American Express had introduced in the late ’90s. Maybe that was actually a little ahead of its time. This is the right thing at the right time and it goes well beyond the marketing alliance.” The companies already have engaged “in a very successful 12-plus-year joint venture on the payment side of our business, so we’ve worked with Maritz for many years and enjoyed a great relationship,” Sedky noted. “Both companies individually have a number of products and services that are in support of the Maxvantage alliance,” Sedky said. “Amex brings our meetings card program and partnership with StarCite for Meetings360, but also meetings technology that we’ve developed. Maritz equally has a number of solutions that we’re excited to introduce to our customers. These will all be part of this one-stop shop for strategic meetings management, but they’re not necessarily in the alliance per se.” Neither American Express nor Maritz would disclose the terms of the deal, but Sedky said, “We’re looking to both gain from the growth of this alliance, from a revenue and an earnings perspective.” Duffy said the time is ripe for companies to adopt strategic meetings management programs, noting economic factors and growing scrutiny over corporate meetings expenses. HERVÉ SEDKY Opportunity in untapped market Sedky added, “The meetings business is a $124 billion global business. Right now, less than 10 percent of companies have truly managed that expense category. Therefore, we see this as a huge opportunity for us.” “It’s great that you have two behemoths in the industry combining their synergies for the customers in the marketplace,” said Kevin Iwamoto, vice president of enterprise strategy at StarCite, which has marketing relationships with both Maritz and American Express. “It definitely lends more visibility and credibility to strategic meetings management.” Iwamoto, who is a former Hewlett-Packard travel and meetings buyer, said the deal could fill growing market demand for “more connectivity, more cohesion among the suppliers and all these things to make customers’ jobs easier and make the process flow better.” Sedky said the companies are “targeting Sept. 1” to begin bringing the Maxvantage offering to clients. “We both have our respective strategic meetings management customer bases, and they’ll be migrating into Maxvantage,” according to Sedky. “From the beginning, there will be enough scale to really get us started to continue to invest in this and scale up.” In the meantime, Sedky said some American Express employees would begin working for Maritz, and vice versa, to support the alliance’s division of labor. “We’re both accountable to the outcome and were both in this together,” Sedky said. “This is the Maritz SMM offer and American Express SMM offer, and we’re going to manage this business in that fashion.” ■ jboehmer@btnonline.com ■ BA Prods Long-Haul Premium Class Continued from page 18 configure any of our aircraft,” Walsh said. “That clearly is an option, but we see no real sense in doing that, mainly because you have to spend cash to reconfigure.” BA has taken several steps to fill premium cabins, like selling business class seats at a 40 percent discount and offering free taxi trans- fers to and from Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 to first- and long-haul business-class passengers within a 100-mile radius of Heathrow who are U.K. resident Executive Club members. BA also introduced a 2for-1 offer for its Club World cabin, “the first time we’ve ever done that,” Walsh said. Walsh noted BA also has been Business Travel News overselling economy cabins in the hope of upgrading customers to the front of the plane for a fee. “Where we’ve got permission to market to individual customers,” Walsh said, “we will go out in advance of a flight where we know we have an oversold economy cabin, and we will contact the customers and offer them an upgrade, which is much better than upgrading them for free on the day of operation.” Regardless of his efforts to stimulate demand and chase revenue for the front of plane, Walsh said he remains a believer in premium cabins. “There are some who think the premium market is dead. I don’t believe that,” Walsh said this month. “It makes sense for us to continue to have a focus on the long-haul premium in particular. While the recovery will take some time, and we may not get back to volumes that we witnessed in 2007 and 2008, I do believe the market will recover.” ■ Senior editor Jay Boehmer contributed to this report. 20 Monday, June 29, 2009 www.BTNonline.com http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - June 29, 2009

Business Travel News - June 29, 2009
Contents
Inside Track
BTN Research
Profiles In Travel Mgmt
Forum
Lodging
Aviation
Payment/Expense
Meetings Today
EuroBTN

Business Travel News - June 29, 2009