Data-driven Travel Programs and Travel Spend Optimization
RELX Group sought a solution to provide transparency into booking habits and to deliver an enhanced level of corporate travel analytics. RELX chose Oversee’s airfare tracking module and insights suite based on Oversee’s ability to integrate and generate travel savings globally and provide a consolidated reporting platform.
Reducing Air Spend and Uncovering Booking Habits
RELX Group has undertaken efforts to educate its workforce regarding corporate travel and create a unified approach. Even with considerable cultural change, RELX Group was still looking for an innovative and technological solution that would continually search for price drops during and after the ticketing void window up until departure.
RELX engaged FareSaver, Oversee’s Air Price Assurance platform, to monitor volatile airline pricing and find lower prices after booking while travelers remain on the same route, in the same aircraft and cabin class.
“There’s an opportunity to stop and analyze what we’re doing at the point of booking, why wouldn’t we be using technology to deliver a profit?” said Martin Stevens, RELX Group’s Senior Manager of Procurement. “We weren’t looking at what was going on between booking and departure. Why wouldn’t we spend three hundred pounds to save a thousand?”
Online booking tools and auto-ticketing made human oversight an additional challenge. “By the time we spot instances where the lowest logical fare isn’t booked – with auto-ticketing – it’s often too late.”
The Results: Outstanding Savings, Improved Reporting, and Better Negotiations
RELX is now working with Oversee to enhance and enrich the group’s travel analytics and build and deploy additional reporting layers that benchmark negotiated fares against publicly available ones. With Oversee delivering real-time data, RELX is better prepared when negotiating airline contracts and can quickly highlight sub-standard agreements.
Looking towards the future with Oversee, he commented, “I think it’s going to be very useful for airline negotiations more so than it’s ever been – it provides better data than our TMC.”
Tackling Unused Tickets
RELX Group has a group-level consolidated travel procurement so that its business units – such as LexisNexis, Cirium, and Reed Exhibitions – can all benefit from the same technologies at scale.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, RELX Group had many refunds and unflown tickets on their books. While a central purchasing account could facilitate many refunds, there are instances where personal cards could be reimbursed directly from airlines and go unnoticed by the central management.
Martin said of Oversee’s unused ticketing module, “We seek innovative ideas, and Oversee falls into that. Partnering with best-in-class technologies like Oversee is a great strategy for our TMC.”
About RELX Group
RELX Group is multinational information and analytics company for professional and business customers.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange (LON:REL), the group has a market capitalization of $43 billion and employs over 33,000 people in 40 countries.
Travel at RELX
RELX Group has a comprehensive global travel program that ensures employees can effectively serve the needs of its customers in more than 180 countries.
For RELX, corporate travel at this scale needs to be effectively managed and cost-effective to support business goals.
