At the Global Business Travel
Association conference in San Diego, Business Travel News recognized EY global
head of travel, meetings and events Karen Hutchings as the 2018 Travel Manager
of the Year. BTN editor-in-chief Elizabeth West announced the winner, chosen by
BTN from nominations submitted by the industry.
"BTN's 2018 Travel Manager
of the Year is the first recipient also to have been recognized as a
Multinational Travel Manager of the Year. Her relentless drive and more than a
dash of daring have landed her on our front pages more than once: For driving "co-opetition,"
for implementing bots to chase incomplete itineraries and, on this occasion,
for transforming one of the largest hotel programs in the world. This
individual and her team reduced EY's six-month RFP process to six weeks and
have since replaced the RFP concept entirely with the idea of annual hotel 'renewal,'"
West said at the BTN Travel Manager of the Year reception. "Using rate
caps and following a dynamic rate strategy, her team created a program with
35,000 preferred hotels to serve 255,000 employees around the globe. Price
assurance technologies continuously rebook rooms in the dynamic environment and
resulted in $1.3 million in gross savings in the first four months of 2018. In
reducing the full-time labor associated with the RFP process, she has unleashed
hotel program resources to pursue more strategic endeavors. BTN would like to
recognize and congratulate EY global head of travel, meetings and events Karen
Hutchings for forging a new model for one of the most intractable processes in
our industry. It is a model we believe other buyers will consider very
seriously."
Travel Management Best Practitioners
BTN also recognized its 2018 Best
Practitioners. Each was awarded for excellence in a single practice within his
or her overall program.
Shawn
Johnson, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Director of Support
Services: Johnson invented an airline key performance indicator called Quality
Mile Per Trip that takes into account not only quantifiable performance
measures like on-time rankings, cancellation percentages and baggage handling
performance but also airline response to travelers in need of rebooking, as
well as airline solutions for improving the traveler experience and benefits
like frequent-flier programs and upgrades. The metric created clarity for LDS
church leadership around why lowest cost isn't always the best value, and he
used this KPI to consolidate his airline program. It allowed him to leverage
more volume and gain deeper benefits with the partners that remained. He also is
using the metric to explore deeper discussions, beyond rates and discounts,
with LDS suppliers.
Bill
Amaral, State of California Business Partnership & Travel Manager: Amaral put
the structures in place to turn the state of California's travel program hard
toward virtual card solutions. The 100,000-person program had 17,000 corporate
cards in force. Bill has now reduced that to 7,000 through the use of virtual
cards, which he integrated with CalTravelStore through Citibank and Conferma.
It took years of selling the concept and laying foundation work, but in
requiring virtual payment of air, car and hotel, Amaral has significantly
reduced the expense reporting burden on travelers, reduced potential for fraud
and drastically reduced the time it takes the state's financial and accounting
teams to reconcile charges. He is integrating the virtual card with Concur's
online booking tool and will require all state of California preferred hotel
partners to accept virtual payment.
Yukari
Tortorich, Discovery Communications VP Global Travel Services: BTN has been following Tortorich's work for
several years. First, in a virtual card implementation, then in her pilot and
implementation of flight tracking and rebooking service Freebird. She has
shared with our webinar audiences her tech-forward travel management strategies
in piloting new capabilities, why she does it and how—and why doing so is
important to her company and her travelers. Her latest technology
implementation is Casto's chat-based mobile travel assistant, Marco. BTN recognizes
Tortorich as a perpetual innovator who has influenced the industry by
pioneering ideas and by partnering with startups in a way that helped direct
their development. She has driven practical innovation throughout the industry
and influenced many of the products that are emerging today, even when she didn't
adopt them for her program.