Tell us a bit about how Blacklane works with TMCs

TMCs have been integral in driving awareness and adoption for ensuring ground transport is included within travel policies. Blacklane works hand in hand with many different TMCs around the world. We’re proud to be a preferred supplier to many, with our Groundspan integration making us easy to book for the TMC universe. Our TMC relationships are about more than booking ease – we also work with them to ensure we can really add value to the relationships they have with their clients.

Together, we ensure an end-to-end approach to travel plans, and all the associated cost and sustainability reporting. This support with management information is key to ensuring that policies are fit for purpose, and to highlight where improvement metrics can be added in and measured. A TMC enjoys our seamless luxury service in-car, but also benefits throughout the travel booking and reporting process.

What questions do you want TMCs to ask you during an RFP process?

TMCs are great at guiding their clients through the implementation of adding a new supplier. However, in ground transport everything is just a little less practised. This means that we encourage TMCs to ask more questions about how they will bring their own teams, and travel managers in-house, up to speed with the booking process.

TMCs should consider asking the question ‘How will you ensure that agents and buyers can confidently engage with you, once this deal is up and running?’ This gives confidence that bookers are not overwhelmed, that the supplier can identify any challenges and ensure they are preempted, and that the working relationship starts from a point of strong collaboration.

Is there anything you would encourage TMCs to do differently in how they engage with suppliers?

As a general trend we see that implementation works brilliantly when working with a TMC. However, there is not yet as much attention on what comes next. TMCs can aid faster adoption and simpler processes if they plan for a new supplier to provide training to agents and travel managers.

We also know that many TMCs are becoming tech powerhouses with their own in-house technology. Just because a supplier like Blacklane is on the main distribution platforms used by their agents does not mean we follow a one-size-fits-all model.

For example, many TMCs have dedicated VIP teams to support certain client segments. We are passionate about exceptional service, and want to work together to find the solution that works best for different booking nuances – from individual APIs to simply ensuring that some clients are routed through our dedicated bookers portal.

AI is driving change in how we all work – what should TMCs be planning for?

AI can free up a booking agent’s time, aggregating lots of information and helping to find the best option faster.

And when the booker is empowered to embrace AI and has the expertise to spot an error or apply first-hand knowledge to ensure tools have the right prompts and guardrails, then the potential for maintaining service levels is also strong.

Research presented at recent industry conferences has again and again addressed the significant gap between those using AI to research travel, and those actually making bookings through AI. While the booking functionality is still emerging, it is a fascinating theme among corporate travel experts. When things go wrong – for example earlier this year multiple airport closures in the US due to storms and extreme snow – bookers hit the phones to Blacklane’s dedicated Care team. Changing travel plans, and finding fast solutions, in times of chaos means we often seek the reassurance of another human.

And planning ahead. For all of us this means embracing the efficiency AI can bring while also ensuring we have the expertise of trusted bookers built into these channels in particular when things go wrong.

From your perspective, what is the biggest challenge TMCs are facing right now?

Aside from embracing AI in a manner that protects client service, I am also interested in how we together tackle the challenge of complexity. It is a prevailing theme on industry conference stages, but we have collectively made limited progress.

Those new to the business travel industry find just the acronyms and abbreviations complicated, and that is before they have worked out how the OBT might work with the GDS or what NDC will do to it. How everything is connected is yet more confusing than the individual parts of the sum.

We have industry agreement that complexity is an issue, and that it is something that we want to solve, but we have more collaboration to do. The combination of AI innovation taking place in business travel, alongside the advanced human expertise sitting in all our teams, means we cannot be far from a resolution.

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