Moving into 2021, suppliers are courting corporate travel
buyers with more favorable agreements. However, buyers need to vet suppliers
continuously for long-term financial stability in order to ensure quality
product and service for their travelers. Here’s what the industry is saying
about recovery and how corporate agreements and pricing are shaping up for
2021.
Look Who’s Talking...
Sascha Meskendahl, Blacklane Chief Revenue Officer
On Chauffeured Category Survival: The Covid-19 pandemic has
weakened our industry just as it has across travel. Some companies ceased
operations and others had painful layoffs. Some delayed payments to affiliates
and some filed for bankruptcy protection. Travel managers need to understand if
their chauffeur providers will endure the pandemic. That requires asking
suppliers potentially uncomfortable questions about layoffs, affiliate payments
and bankruptcy filings.
On Sourcing Safe Solutions: Safety and security dominate the
conversation with corporate travel managers. Corporates want to know how clean
and sanitized each step of employees’ journeys will be. Therefore, many are
delaying lengthy RFPs. Instead, their focus is immediate safe solutions for
employees who have essential travel. In these cases, they’re accelerating the
review process to select the best providers.
On Rising Rates in 2021: Chauffeurs disinfect vehicles
before and after each ride, and that time reduces the number of rides they can
perform. This new normal of operations will likely increase fares industry-wide
in 2021 for airport transfers, hourly service and other rides within a
metropolitan area. While travel managers and travelers understand this,
Blacklane is keeping fares as stable as possible by helping chauffeurs best
utilize their capacities during the course of a day.
Look Who’s Talking...
Dave Kilduff, DK Consulting Group CEO
On Ground Transportation Industry Pain: If the corporate
world does not start traveling six months from now, I can’t tell you the
financial shape of who’s going to be left. The more pain they feel, the more
they have to cut, whether it’s getting rid of more fleet, cutting more
employees, borrowing more money if they can, going out of business or going
bankrupt. When the world [gets back to travel], it’s going to be an issue of
who has employees, who has a fleet to service that business. Continuous vetting
of suppliers is one of the most important things you can do going forward—who
you are doing business with, who is financially stable or, at least, the most
financially stable.
On Going Beyond the RFP: One of the things happening in car
rental is location closings, where some of the companies aren’t doing business
in whole areas. One supplier may not have location and service where you need
it. It’s now a more important time to do an RFP. The issue is you can’t stop at
the RFP. You have to continue to vet.
On Falling Rates in 2021: Car rental and chauffeur prices
are going down. They are competitive and the suppliers want to talk to
corporate travel buyers. Now is a good time to look at your ground
transportation because when it picks up, you don’t want to be sitting there
with suppliers that have issues.
Look Who’s Talking...
Don Moore, National Car Rental SVP Business Rental Sales and Global Corporate Accounts
On Travelers Hitting the Road: Customers are starting to
travel again, and their trips are longer. Some customers have decided to wait
out the pandemic and some have decided to wait for the restart of business to
decide what to do. We’ve had many RFPs we’ve gone through. We’ve taken into
account, like any time of the year, length of rental, where we are renting
from, type of rental.
On Changing Rental Patterns: A lot of our business has
changed. It used to be the road warrior would pick up a vehicle on Monday
morning and return sometime during the week, but their rental was Monday
through Wednesday or Thursday, then we would use other types of business to
supplement the weekend and so forth before the road warrior picks up again
Monday morning. Because a lot of folks are renting in their home city market
now, some of them are picking up vehicles and going somewhere for the weekend
then somewhere for business.
On Contracts: If corporate clients want to redo a contract,
we encourage them to do it. That helps us plan for the future. If we know what
type of customers and how many customers we are going to have in place, it
gives us the ability to buy cars when we need them in whatever location we need
them.
Look Who’s Talking...
Bill Amaral, State of California Business Partnership &
Travel Manager
On Making Do with Fewer Transportation Options: Trains and
bus schedule reductions have impacted our ability to use those services. We are
waiting for car rental operations to get back to normal—many locations have
shut down due to lack of business.
On 2021 Car Rental Rates: We’re locked into a contract right now, so I think our rates will remain stable
even though our volume took a nosedive after shelter-in-place orders this year.
On Travel Activity & Demand: We started to kick back into gear this year, only because of the California
fires. We rely on our car rental provider for four-wheel drive vehicles and
sport utility vehicles to assist and respond to the fires. We have service
level agreements that they have to meet, and we are secure that our provider will
continue to meet those. Some locations are temporarily shut down, but we have
other options to pick up the vehicles or get them delivered.
