Interview: Carlson Wagonlit Travel CEO Expects More Mergers Among Peers

There's been some considerable movement in the travel management space during the past year as business travel continues rebounding in many parts of the world following the recession. SAP's acquisition of Concur reflected the global scale and scope of business travel and the need to make operations more efficient. American Express Global Business Travel formed a joint venture. Although not in the travel management sector, online travel agencies Booking.com and Expedia recently made moves to dive deeper into corporate travel by going after business travelers working at small businesses without strict managed travel programs. Carslon Wagonlit Travel was the fourth largest travel agency in the world in 2013 with 20,000 employees and $26.9 billion in sales, according to Travel Weekly's Power List. Carlson Wagonlit Travel CEO Doug Anderson recently talked to Skift about the future of the travel management and what consolidation in travel management companies (TMCs) means for the future of business travel, how mobile will impact the company's plans over the next year as well as efforts to get control over business travelers who want to book their travel on their own terms. Following is an edited version of that interview: Skift: What are your thoughts on Booking.com and Expedia's recent announcements that they're becoming more aggressive in the corporate client space? And what do you think of Expedia's Egencia as a competitor? Is Egencia making an impact in the market? Doug Anderson: We’ve competed with Egencia for a number years. Egencia’s appeal to me seems to be with companies that have very high rates of online adoption and they have a robust offering in that space. We view our services as being differentiated from Egencia in that we have an offering that I would call a bit more robust for clients looking for a more highly managed travel program. Egencia does come into the managed travel space, but I’d say in the more lighter end of this space. Business travel is a good place to be and we spend our life there. I think Booking.com for Business is directed at the unmanaged business travel program and generally we think of the smaller programs that spend $3 to 5 million or more on business travel as being potentially interested in a more managed program like what what we offer. Booking.com is trying to appeal to very high levels of online adoption and I think we’re differentiated in that we can provide our clients with real-time