Prestigious award for FCm Travel Solutions

Asia Pacific-based travel management company FCm Travel Solutions has scooped up one prestigious business travel award and been short-listed for another after just one year of operation as a global entity.

FCm Travel Solutions, the corporate travel arm of Flight Centre Limited, was named Best Business Travel Management Company in the Business Travel World magazine’s annual awards in London, and was a finalist in its Corporate Travel Management Team award.

FCm Travel Solutions Executive General Manager Anthony Grigson said the group had made great strides toward becoming a serious global rival to the likes of American Express and Carlson Wagonlit, and the group’s London awards performance was recognition of that.

“This time last year we were just a few months old and established in just a handful of countries,” Mr Grigson said.

“Since then we’ve expanded rapidly into Asia and across Europe, we’re represented in over 50 countries and we’ve built the strongest Asia-Pacific regional presence of anyone in our sector,” he said.

“Things are happening very, very quickly, as we always believed they would, and winning awards like this announces to the world that we’ve arrived and that we mean business.”

FCm Travel Solutions beat off competition from other short-listed candidates American Express Business Travel and ATP to take the top award for the Business Travel Management Company with an annual UK turnover of more than £100 million, ending a five year winning streak by another giant, BTI UK.

The Business Travel World Awards are renowned for their tough judging process. The magazine believes that to accurately recognise annual achievement in business to business awards, careful examination and scrutiny in a number of areas is essential.

BTW award judges this year included Michael Prager, managing director, Delta Squared, Melvin Pugh, strategic purchasing manager, Zurich Financial and Linda Robertson, business travel services manager British American Tobacco. They not only read, scrutinised and debated entries, but were involved in collating market feedback in order to devise the process and questions.

As part of a detailed written entry, FCm Travel Solutions had to give evidence of its ability to provide data in a customer-specific format, and to provide consultancy services which reduce cost and raise service level. The company also had to describe methods used to communicate with customers, plus the main factors driving customer satisfaction in the last 12 months.

Commenting on FCm Travel Solutions winning the Business Travel Management Company award, the judges said: “FCm was a clear winner because its strengths are in the areas where the evolving market is finding value, namely account management and technology. FCm also has transparently acted for its clients in its ability to move business according to client needs rather than being tied into supplier agreements.”

Indeed one individual judge said: “Boy, do they deliver to their customers! They know exactly where their business is and their account management is superb.”

FCm Travel Solutions also made it into the final line up of four travel management companies competing for the Corporate Travel Management Team award for its work with T-Mobile.

“This is a fantastic achievement for FCm Travel Solutions and something that we are all extremely proud of,” said Alan Spence, managing director FCm Travel Solutions UK.

FCm Travel Solutions was launched in Beijing in August 2004 and since then it has grown by a combination of organic growth and acquisition, coupled with an increasing number of strategic partners.

The momentum increased dramatically in 2005 with rapid expansion into Europe and Asia.

Mr Grigson said FCm Travel Solutions had quickly built a reputation as an Asia Pacific region specialist and was winning business from longer established companies.

“This strategy allows FCm Travel Solutions to win and retain regional and national clients by offering them the security of consistent service and Travel Management Company (TMC) support wherever they may travel,” Mr Grigson said.

Future plans include expanding the partner base to 30 within the foreseeable future, including a significant partner in the United States, establishing a direct presence in the Middle East and Latin America and continued expansion in the Asia Pacific region and in key African markets.