Latest News
HomeAviationConcur announces direct corporate booking partnership with Lufthansa
Business travel

Concur announces direct corporate booking partnership with Lufthansa

Concur TripLink enables Lufthansa to meet today's growing business travel needs.

ORLANDO, FLA. – Concur, a leading provider of expense management solutions and services, announced a new partnership with Lufthansa to enable business travel bookings directly, while still giving travel managers all of the same benefits, tools and visibility that they get today on bookings made in Concur.

Concur expense data shows one in five air bookings are made directly with suppliers today with no control or visibility for travel managers. By leveraging the Concur TripLink solution, travel managers will be able to track, view and manage all bookings made directly on Lufthansa.com as soon as they occur.

This integration helps companies improve policy compliance and duty of care efforts. Business travelers gain the option to book their corporate negotiated rates directly on LH.com and enjoy the benefit of having their itineraries and expense reports automatically populated in Concur.

“This is a major step for us in addressing new-generation needs for modern business travel,” said Joerg Hennemann, senior vice president of automated sales, pricing & distribution at Lufthansa. “By partnering with Concur, we are giving business travelers additional and unprecedented convenience: the choice to book their flights where they would like to receive negotiated corporate discounts, and still easily fulfill expense and reporting requirements.”

Concur TripLink is a solution that addresses the growing challenges for businesses and travelers to manage travel and spend in a digital economy. Concur TripLink captures data from flights, hotels and ground transportation – no matter where travel is booked. Access to this data gives companies of all sizes insight into travel expenditures before they happen and a more complete picture of spend with specific suppliers, giving companies the information they need for better negotiations. The solution has seen strong growth over the last quarter with a 20 percent increase in customer adoption.

The product can also be offered as an element of an overall TMC corporate solution to the corporate customer. TMC Preferred Partners that are now live with Concur TripLink integrations are Adelman Travel Group, Cain Travel, Christopherson Business Travel, Frosch, Gant Travel and Travel Incorporated.

“Connecting with partners around the globe to capture spend and travel booking information wherever it happens is key to our Perfect Trip vision,” said Tim MacDonald, executive vice president of Travel solutions for Concur. “Adding Lufthansa to our growing networked economy of Concur TripLink partners enables us to give our customers a transparent view of their spend, greater visibility into their travel plans and an effortless road to compliance for employees.”

Concur TripLink Partners previously announced include: Airbnb, Air Canada, Avis, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Etihad Airways, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), National Car Rental, Marriott (International), Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Sixt, United Airlines and Wally Park.

Also, Concur announced partnerships with Lyft and HotelTonight. These partnerships continue the company’s commitment to meet modern business travelers’ needs for on-demand services, while also providing finance and travel managers greater visibility and manageability for business expenses.

“Bringing more on-demand mobile applications into the Concur business travel ecosystem is in line with our vision of helping our customers and partners experience The Perfect Trip,” said Tim MacDonald, executive vice president of Travel at Concur. “Our data shows half of business trips are booked less than two weeks out, which fuels the need for on-demand travel apps. By partnering with companies like Lyft and HotelTonight, we’re advancing our commitment to innovation and extending the instantaneous benefits of on-demand services to business travelers, all while making that spend visible to travel managers wherever it happens.”

A 2015 survey of travel managers found that more than 50 percent say the booming on-demand and sharing economies are a top trend impacting travel programs.1 Supporting this observation, Concur saw a 7x increase in amount of spend by Concur customers expensing Lyft.2 Also, data from HotelTonight shows that more than 40 percent of people who book with the app have used it for business travel.

“Business travelers flock to anything that makes their lives easier, which is why Lyft’s affordable rides within minutes have quickly become a go-to ground transportation option for many companies,” said Amit Patel, director of enterprise at Lyft. “By partnering with Concur we are giving business travelers who choose Lyft even more convenience and efficiency.”

“Our business is built to meet the needs of the last-minute traveler,” said Sam Shank, co-founder and CEO, HotelTonight. “Integration with Concur will further our ability to serve this audience and provide our business customers a streamlined booking and reporting experience, the process of finding a hotel from seven days out up to the eleventh hour.”

Photo caption: Lufthansa’s Business Class.

News Editor - TravelDailyNews Media Network | + Posts

Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.

She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.

28/03/2024
27/03/2024
26/03/2024
25/03/2024
22/03/2024