Travel - Related Purchasing
Consortiums Heat Up

Corporate Meetings & Incentives

Consortiums are "white hot" outside the travel industry, but they may soon be heating up among companies that purchase airline and hotel space, according to Kevin Mitchell, president of Business Travel Contractors Corp. (BTCC), a "strategic buying group" composed of U.S. corporations that annually purchase about $1 billion in business travel services.

There is growing evidence that groups like BTCC are spreading. Two former hotel executives established the Resort Meetings Consortium of Orlando, FL to secure favorable rates for members at four- and five-diamond resort properties. Another new group, the Corporate Travel Alliance, representing companies with regional offices in Utah, is also considering consortium purchasing.

"Consortiums are the wave of the future because they are the only way for the buyer and the seller to jointly attack the cost of distribution," says BTCC's Mitchell.

Helping to trigger the formation of consortiums, he adds, are developments such as the recent American Airlines/ British Airways alliance. "Once these alliances go through, companies will realize the day of the individual corporate deals are gone," he says.

The Resort Meetings Consortium is another industry first, according to Jerry Janove, its Vice President of Sales. Its clientele consists solely of companies that use top-rated luxury resorts. "Our agreements mean resorts will not be looking at a one-shot deal with a particular company but at a client base that will continue to use them," says Janove. Janove says the group's client's range from Wells Fargo to Harley-Davidson.