American Express Global Business Travel

COMPANY PROFILE

Key staff

Paul Abbott, CEO
Drew Crawley, president
Karen Williams, CFO
Jason Geall, EVP, global SME
David Reimer, EVP, global multinational
Mark Hollyhead, chief product officer & Egencia president
Patti Huska, chief people officer

Main industry sectors

Construction, financial and professional services, government and public sector, healthcare and pharmaceutical, information technology, manufacturing, media and entertainment, mining, oil and gas, retail, shipping and fisheries, sport, telecoms and postal services, transport sector and logistics, utilities

Services in addition to business travel

Consultancy, group travel, incentives, meetings and events, passport and visa services, sustainability programmes, traveller wellbeing services, venue sourcing, vip travel

Type of company

Public company listed on NYSE as Global Business Travel Group Inc. (GBTG)

Awards and accreditations

Won Best Travel Team 2022 at the Business Travel Awards Europe. The Google-Amex GBT travel team was recognised for its Accessibility Travel Desk, designed to assist travellers with disabilities

Online transactions

82%

Office locations

Global HQ: London. Major regional offices include: New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Madrid, Phoenix AZ, Seattle, Chicago, Mexico City, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, Bangalore

Association and network membership

AFTM, The BTA, DBTA, DRV, FBTA, GBTA, GEBTA, ITM, NBTA, SBTA, VDR, NATM, BATM, SRV (Switzerland)

Full-time equivalent staff

18,500 globally

ESG/CSR/DEI policies

• Working towards Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), aiming to submit a target for validation by the end of 2023
• First TMC to join the World Economic Forum (WEF), becoming part of the First Movers Coalition and signing the WEF Clean Skies for Tomorrow ambition statement
• Agreement with CHOOOSE on travel-related carbon emissions.
• Amex GBT Meeting & Events signed the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge
• Green Compass 30x30 scheme to help clients achieve a 30% emission reduction within their travel programmes by 2030
• Paul Abbott signed the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge, the largest CEO-led commitment to advance DE&I within the workplace
• Netherlands team signed the Diversity Charter with the Dutch Social and Economic Council, which includes a commitment to increase female representation in senior leadership roles in Benelux to 33% by the end of 2022 (which has been fulfilled) and a future one of 40% by the end of 2023
• LGBTQ equality drive: Australian colleagues won Bronze from the Australian Workplace Equality Index and pursued membership in Pride in Diversity, supporting employers striving for LGBTQ inclusion
• DE&I team expanded employee resource groups (ERGs), which now number seven proactive colleague communities including ERGs for colleagues with disabilities, and for LGBT+, Black, Asian and Hispanic colleagues
• Sustained risk mitigation strategies addressing privacy, cybersecurity, business continuity, crisis management and helping combat fraud, terrorist financing, money laundering, bribery, and corruption

GDS

Amadeus, Sabre & Travelport (no primary GDS)

Online booking tools

Amadeus cytric, GetThere, Serko, SAP Concur, Neo (proprietary OBT), Egencia, DEEM, Argo

Expense management tools

Certify, Chrome River, Expensify, SAP Concur, Neo (proprietary expense tool), Neo1 (proprietary spend management tool). Egencia provides customers with an expense API to integrate with third-party expense tools  

Other technology (I=in-house, T=third-party)

Air reshopping T
Auditing I, T
Business intelligence I
Data visualisation I, T
Disruption management I
Hotel reshopping I
Meetings management I
Mobile booking app I
Mobile itinerary app I
Peer benchmarking I
Personalised trip recommendation I
Pre-trip approval I, T
Profile management I
Quality assurance I
Sustainability reporting I, T
Traveller tracking I
Travel risk management I, T
Unused ticket management I

Other technology

GBT Account personalised global travel platform that brings all travel management tools together into one single-sign on platform; Travel Vitals aggregated Covid & safety information resource hub; Virtual Payment Expert facilitates hotel bookings using virtual card numbers via Conferma Pay technology; Workspaces booking solution for flexible daytime work & meeting spaces for individuals & small teams

Technology strategy

As of 2021, Amex GBT had invested $1.4 billion in products and platforms, including the acquisition of Egencia and 30SecondsToFly, specialist in AI-powered travel technology. Amex GBT builds proprietary, end-to-end digital solutions and an innovation hub powering an omnichannel service platform with all Amex GBT applications operating in the cloud. 82% of transactions are processed through digital channels across all Amex GBT-owned points of sale

NDC content

Neo and Egencia currently offer Lufthansa NDC content in Germany.  Egencia also offers NDC content from British Airways in the UK and Singapore Airlines in Singapore.  Both booking tools will soon be launching NDC connections for Air France/KLM and American Airlines. Amex GBT has developed a standard for viable NDC connections for corporate travel called the Minimum Marketable Product (MMP). The MMP will allow the entire industry to accelerate the rollout of serviceable NDC content for airlines that choose to use this new air distribution strategy

Biggest innovations of 2022

• Amex GBT & Shell Aviation launched a landmark pilot programme to aggregate corporate demand for sustainable aviation fuel. Initial one million gallons of SAF, available on Avelia blockchain-powered, book-and-claim platform developed by Shell and Accenture.  Book-and-claim key to aggregating corporate demand, encouraging investment and scaling-up supply. Companies and airlines can record and report associated emissions reductions benefits from that investment, regardless of where SAF is used.
• Amex GBT’s Disruption Management Solutions is a complete set of tools to help travellers during disruptions to their trips.
• Egencia launched a new Egencia API Developer Center and expanded its suite of APIs. Egencia APIs help companies drive operational efficiencies across travel programs and improve business decisions with easier access to real-time data insights. The Developer Center helps developers improve the speed and robustness of API implementation.