Danielle Cavnor & Eric Gray, PwC U.S. Procurement & Operations Senior Managers

It may take an upheaval like American Airline’s all-in foray into New Distribution Capability to strong arm some fundamental changes in the business travel industry at large. But a couple of buyers—backed by senior leadership at a company with a major travel program and its own consulting stake in changing the models of how business travel should be managed—can lead by example.

That was the charge taken up by Danielle Cavnor and Eric Gray for PwC U.S., who jointly garnered BTN’s 2023 Travel Manager of the Year award for their work to forge a new path for business travel management; one that simultaneously produced better savings potential, more value and a better travel experience.

The duo began with a direct booking and direct pay pilot prior to the pandemic. The objective, supported by United Airlines, blockchain travel startup BlockSkye and, at the time, ARC (which later fell out of the fold), was to establish direct booking for travelers so they could access loyalty inclusions and other for-purchase amenities and at the same time reduce global distribution fees for the airline. BlockSkye glued the pieces together on a blockchain-powered ledger to track the booking and related charges, the latter of which was settled directly with the airline on a defined cycle, cutting out credit card transaction fees.

The pilot outlined a workable business case for booking and paying airlines directly, but PwC didn’t want to send travelers to airline dotcoms. As such, it would still need a TMC and corporate booking tool that would play in a direct-connect and direct-pay space—and a broad slate of partners willing to experiment along the way. When few established names were game, PwC went off the grid, enlisting BlockSkye to stand up a blockchain-supported agency on top of core travel technology and customer relationship management platforms provided by Gant Travel. They changed GDS providers to Amadeus and worked with business travel booking newcomer (but leisure search master) Kayak.com to pull multiple content sources and channel strategies into a single forward-facing business travel interface.

The new Kayak Enterprise product, launched in August and predicated on the relationship with BlockSkye, is an extension of the metasearch company’s work with PwC. BlockSkye’s ledger tracks all touches to every reservation and makes it serviceable by the TMC or the airline—if the airline is directly connected. If not, it takes the booking via a traditional GDS but still tracks it in a blockchain ledger.

Gray’s role in the new strategy largely has been to source and work with the new technology ecosystem players to ensure technology requirements are met—not only for current strategies but also as the groundwork for new developments as the program matures.

Cavnor’s role has been to negotiate and work with airline suppliers to integrate with PwC North America’s new platform. Airlines—the first category to connect—clearly understand the distribution and payment narratives. Cavnor has brought United, American, and Southwest onboard. Avis Budget Group is on deck as the first car rental company to participate.

To optimize performance within the PwC U.S. program, suppliers eventually will need to take the leap. The firm’s new sourcing strategy prioritizes suppliers in the booking tool according to the value of their negotiated deals combined with how fully each supplier participates in PwC’s direct connect strategy. The more strategically suppliers participate, the more visible they become to PwC’s 65,000 U.S.-based travelers and the more suppliers can benefit in terms of distribution and payment savings. Cavnor and Gray confirmed to BTN that PwC U.S. plans to share in those savings and return value to the program.

"As brilliant as the strategy and vision for this program is, it couldn't have been accomplished without leaders like Danielle and Eric,” said Gant Travel CEO Patrick Linihan. “The history of corporate travel is littered with efforts to innovate at this scale. The missing piece was having practical leaders who know each other's strengths and have their hands on the pulse of their internal customers. They managed up, they managed down, and they brought practical leadership to highfalutin concepts like blockchain and direct connect. And they got the job done."