FCM Travel has developed a trip approvals platform that can integrate the process across geographies and booking methods for clients, the travel management company announced.
The Approvals feature provides a single interface for managing approvals for clients that might use a variety of booking tools or have different approval needs by region. With that, companies can centralize control over travel activity across the company with a consistent process, according to John Morhous, chief experience officer for corporate brands at FCM parent company Flight Centre Travel Group.
The platform can help companies save up to two hours in offline flow for approvals, FCM said.
Morhous said the platform fits a need across a large set of FCM’s clients. Of its multinational clients, more than half have either an active or passive trip approval process in place, and customers have an average of four to five online booking tools per customer, he said. In addition, about 60 percent of inquiries to FCM are non-transactional requests, and of that subset, the most frequent request is “to go chase someone down for approval,” according to Morhous.
One of the feature’s pilot customers, JTI, was able to use it for “a concise notification of booked travel for line managers and travelers in more than 60 countries,” JTI category manager for travel and events Nichola Rimmer said in a statement. “Our personalized solution has allowed us to start providing concise, useful information to help travelers and line managers make value-add decisions.”
The Approvals feature will first be available in 35 countries, and FCM plans to eventually make it available globally. The TMC will begin with its existing customer base this year, and availability to new customers will come in 2025.
