Traditionally, SMEs have struggled on tight travel budgets, unable to secure discounts enjoyed by bigger organisations with deeper pockets. But the emergence of new web-based travel services means they are now able to access a whole range of cost-effective options from the comfort of their office computers.
"We are able, through our size, to negotiate heavily discounted air fares, hotels and car hire for SMEs," says James Vaile, managing director of Expedia UK, currently the country's leading travel site. "We are able to offer the same, or often better, discounts than a corporate agency. They can come across to our site and enjoy the benefits without having the infrastructure and volume behind them in their individual organisations."
According to a recent report from Jupiter MMXI, the online travel market in Europe has grown considerably over the last year, and analysts predict that it will be worth about £12bn by 2006. According to Jupiter's research, the UK is the biggest online travel market in Europe, with Germany and France close behind. About six million people used UK travel sites in January this year. With the online market set to expand, new travel services are launching and many have SME customers in their sights.
Opodo, which is backed by nine European airlines including BA, KLM, Air France and Lufthansa, launched in the UK at the beginning of this year with a huge marketing blitz. It is the third most popular site after Expedia and Last Minute.
The new site lets you compare ticket prices from 480 airlines. There is telephone-based customer support and a callback service on the website. You hit a button and a customer representative will ring you to discuss, for example, how best to put together a trip to fit in meetings in different countries. The online travel service also lets you store details so if you frequently travel to a particular destination you don't have to keep keying in the same information.
However, despite the fact that travel sites offer heavily discounted ticket prices, there are still large numbers of SMEs in the UK who appear not to have woken up to the possibilities. "The web puts SMEs in control," explains Lorraine Twohill, head of marketing development for Opodo. "It's frustrating when you go into a travel agent and wait in a line. You want to grab the computer and turn it around. The web speeds things up. Most of us are on the computer most of the time anyway. You can get your booking done in about five to eight minutes. It's cost-effective and you can quickly find good deals."
Sites are introducing organisational services so you can store the details of other travellers online. Expedia, for example, lets you store multiple traveller details in one place, including credit card details, telephone numbers and special meal requirements. The idea is to make it easier for someone to manage bookings for a group of people. So they don't have to constantly go back to them for additional information.
EasyJet is proving itself popular with business travellers and now offers 40 routes from 16 European destinations. For the last financial year it reported pre-tax profits of £40m. Unlike traditional airlines, you have to pay for food and drinks on the aircraft and you are given reference numbers instead of tickets.
"Hopefully SMEs will find the website easy to use," says Toby Nicol, a spokesman for EasyJet. "Instead of having tickets sent to you, when you make a booking you are given a six digit ticket number and that is all you need to check in. You don't need to worry about whether or not you picked up your tickets in the morning."
Being paperless is key to EasyJet's ability to keep its costs down, and by cutting out travel agents, it removes commission payments at a stroke. You can also book through the airline's call centre. However all these travel services want to push business through the web as it is a much cheaper distribution channel. While low cost airlines are gaining in popularity, there has been some criticism that they fly you into airports that are a long distance from the centres of cities. So obviously it is best to check before making a booking.
Nevertheless, on balance, there are undeniably a large number of travel bargains online which can help SMEs not only meet more frequently with customers in the UK but also through mainland Europe.
