5 reasons Spotnana isn’t a typical TMC

Choosing a new travel management company (TMC) is a complicated process for enterprise travel managers.

With so many options alongside the complexity of managing the fragmentation of a global travel program, it can be challenging to choose a TMC that meets all your program’s needs.

Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service platform is built to address the needs of global travel programs, with our microservices-based architecture built for global content and service.

Here are five reasons why Spotnana’s isn’t a typical TMC.

We’re a global TMC and OBT in one

Traditionally, a global travel program will rely on a variety of partner agencies and OBTs to service global programs.

Spotnana stands out by offering global TMC services alongside our consumer-grade Online Booking Tool (OBT) in one tightly integrated package. Our approach puts all of your travelers on one platform, regardless of where they are based.

Immense benefits come from having agents, travelers, and administrators on the same platform. Travelers can make self-service changes to trips from their mobile phone or computer, with all changes reflected instantly for agents and travel managers. When travelers need agent help, they can get help over chat 24/7 wherever they are in the world.

Since all trip information is captured by Spotnana, administrators have one global dashboard for all business travel. Travel managers have real-time information on trip spending and traveler location, along with the ability to access granular travel program data whenever they want.

Our agents have access to all the info they need to resolve issues quickly, provide personalized service, and service any traveler anywhere in the world. Our platform supports global content, local currencies, and local invoicing with taxes – and our UI is localized in local languages.

Spotnana greatly simplifies travel management due to our integrated global TMC and OBT model.

Global content presented agnostically

A fragmented global travel program with a typical TMC leads to limitations in the variety of content inventory available based on traveler location.

Spotnana, however, is designed to provide the widest array of global content to travelers free of bias. We’ve built out a robust collection of content sources including deep direct New Distribution Capability (NDC) integrations as well as integrations with GDSs, Low-cost carriers, OTAs, aggregators, and other direct connections with top travel suppliers. 

Our industry-leading direct NDC connections with American Airlines, United Airlines, and Lufthansa Group, for example, provide the ability for travelers to select seats based on their loyalty status, buy amenities, and modify or cancel their bookings on a self-service basis. 

We also integrate directly with airlines that don’t support NDC , like our partnership with Southwest Airlines that provides travelers with EarlyBird Check-In and more. We rely on global distribution systems (GDSs) and aggregators like TravelFusion, as well, to give travelers the widest range of possible choices.

Direct integrations give us the ability to take advantage of all the robust functionality that each airline offers through their API. In addition, by working closely with airline engineering teams we place ourselves in a position to be able to quickly bring new capabilities to market.

Hotel content is provided from Expedia, Booking.com, and GDS, bringing travelers hotel content from around the world, deduplicated to provide the best prices with the most amenities.

U.S. rail is available through Spotnana’s deep connection with Amtrak, and a wide variety of European rail, likewise, is available through our integration with Trainline, giving travelers access to rail in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and more.

Travelers, finally, can select car rentals from GDS sources for extensive access to worldwide inventory.

Spotnana’s approach to content means travelers spend less time shopping around while remaining in policy.

Self-service for travelers

Traditional TMCs may offer a variety of content from different sources, but make it impossible for travelers to adjust their trips without paying extra for agent assistance.

Spotnana gives power back to travelers by allowing self-service changes and cancellations on mobile and desktop. It’s simple to make in-policy changes to flight, hotel, car rental, and train reservations without having to waste time contacting an agent or supplier. In October, 85% of the air exchanges on our platform were fully automated and able to be handled on a self-service basis.

For complicated itineraries and complex changes, travelers have access to 24/7 agent help whenever they need it via chat, email, and phone.

Our industry-leading unused ticket management functionality, as well, prominently displays a traveler’s unused air tickets when they are shopping, making it simple for them to track and redeem credits without any agent assistance.

Powerful policy and analytics tools

Using a typical TMC means crafting a complex web of policies by geography based on dated data. Updating policies is an onerous process requiring TMC intervention and may be impossible to update consistently across dozens of global locations.

Since Spotnana deploys a single global instance of our software for each customer, travel managers have access to extremely configurable policy settings that can apply to legal entities, groups, departments, and individuals – all through a single web-based console. Changes can be applied with just a few clicks across an entire program, simplifying the policy setup and adjustment process.

We give travel managers the ability to show travel options, but do not allow bookings based on travel policy so travelers can see the wide array of options and prices available and avoid bookings that the company feels are unacceptable under any circumstances. This builds trust with travelers and reduces the likelihood they will book out of policy on a consumer travel site.

We even allow administrators to set dynamic lowest logical fares for travelers, giving travelers the flexibility to upgrade for select route types if the price is right.

It’s also common for travel managers to receive travel data at the end of the month and then spend weeks or months crunching that information for insights.

Spotnana offers real-time data tracking and insights along with a variety of reports, saving travel managers time and empowering them with the intelligence they need to improve their programs.

Award-winning sustainability tools

Many traditional TMCs do not offer native sustainability and carbon tracking, making it difficult for travel programs to understand their environmental impact.

Spotnana tracks carbon for each booking and displays the estimated carbon impact of traveler choices during the booking process. Travelers can even see how much carbon they’ve contributed to the atmosphere based on their travel.

Earlier this year we launched Spotnana Carbon Removal, which allows travel programs to offset their carbon emissions with a certified Bio Carbon Capture and Storage (Bio-CCS) method at affordable prices. This was quickly followed by our ability to guide travelers to consider available rail options when conducting a flight search.

Our commitment to sustainability was recently recognized by the corporate travel industry, as we received the award for ESG leadership from the Focus Travel Partnership.

Want to learn more about how Spotnana is more than just a TMC? Contact us for a demo today.