BCD Travel launches ‘Connect’- a digital engagement platform for its corporate travel customers

2 October, 2019

Global travel management company BCD Travel has debuted Connect, a digital engagement platform exclusively for its customers, as part of its continued investment in digital engagement services. It says, Connect provides "a community environment that fosters program value and collaboration" between BCD and its global customers.

In addition to community inspired discussion groups, Connect also serves as a single destination for programme best practices, product updates and case studies, proprietary research, industry trends, support, account details and more.

"At BCD Travel we do more than manage travel programs. We serve as a trusted advisor to our customers," explains Yannis Karmis, senior vice president of product planning and innovation for BCD Travel. "Connect will give our customers a dynamic digital environment in which to interact with BCD programme optimisation and technology experts, peers with shared interests, and provide information and guidance on our various products and solutions."

But just as important, Connect will also allow the company to hear directly from customers on a variety of topics that it will use to shape best practices from technology roadmaps and service models to traveller engagement and program intelligence."

Corporate travel professionals want to have a pulse on multiple aspects of their program. But with all the new information pouring in daily, it's a challenge to keep up. "Both in our professional and personal lives, we use a lot of communication tools. They make it so easy to share documents, ideas, videos, slides and much more," notes Miriam Moscovici, senior director, research and corporate innovation at BCD Travel.

"Combining this trend with the need of the corporate travel community to constantly stay up-to-date, led us to create Connect as a digital collaboration tool that will simplify the lives of corporate travel professionals," she explains.

Connect is already available to first movers and will be gradually rolled out to all clients in BCD Travel's wholly owned markets in the next few weeks.

In other news, BCD Travel has announced that its long-time joint-venture partner in South Africa, Connex Travel, is merging with corporate travel management company Rennies Travel. The union of these companies will result in a total workforce of 737 employees, with offices in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London, Stellenbosch and Richard's Bay, as well as Namibia, posting significant annual sales.

The news follows BCD's announcement in January of this year that Rennies Travel, owned by Bidvest, had joined BCD's Global Network. Previously operating as BCD Travel South Africa, Connex Travel has been a BCD Global Network partner since 2009. The merged agency will operate as Rennies BCD Travel.

With the sixth largest population in Africa, South Africa also has the continent's second largest economy, with a gross domestic product of US$366 billion in 2018. The country's economy is highly diversified, with key industries including mining, agriculture and fisheries, vehicle manufacturing and assembly, food processing, telecommunication, energy, financial and business services, tourism and transportation.