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Article Excerpt
Agency networks and franchises last year continued to benefit from the rebound of business travel, remaining focused on developing technology to prove their worth to affiliates and corporate customers alike. "In our niche market of the small to midsize enterprise market, 2006 has started very strongly and we see no reason to expect a downturn in the foreseeable future," said U. Gary Charlwood, chairman and CEO of Uniglobe Travel International. Even so, shakeups from the realignments and acquisitions of the mega corporate-owned travel management companies shifted the landscape of the industry in 2006.
Most notably, U.K.-based travel management company The Travel Company--acquired in January by BCD Holdings--acquired the Synergi travel management network and rebranded it the TTC Global Network. The move followed a flurry of changes involving The Travel Company and its new parent, BCD Holdings, which resulted from BCD's split at the start of the year from its partner of 16 years, Hogg Robinson.
Synergi president Greg O'Neil stayed on as president and CEO of TTC Global, and the new company remains a consortium with longtime Synergi member The Travel Company as its majority shareholder. Garber Travel remains the U.S. partner in the Synergi network and Roz Garber, president of the Chestnut Hill, Mass.-based travel management company, announced in February she would work to revive the abandoned Synergi name.
Also transforming the landscape last year was OneLink Corp., provider of global distribution and financial settlement service for car, hotel and other non-airline travel products, in June 2005, acquisition of hotel reservation provider Reservation Center Inc. "I found ChleLink and I contacted them and we got together and discussed the potential sale of Reservation Center and CCRA," Frances Kiradjian, president and CEO of Reservation Center, told BTN at the time. "Since there were a lot of synergies there with what we'd accomplished over the past 30 years and his product, it seemed to be a perfect match."
Bethesda, Md.-based Radius tops BTN's network and franchisor rankings this year, reporting $19.7 billion in net air ticket sales volume of affiliate agencies reported to ARC, surpassing second-ranked GlobalStar Travel Management in data by 82...
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