Maritz Travel and American Express Business Travel have announced a major new partnership that will join Maritz's expertise in creating and running successful and memorable incentive trips, meetings and events with American Express Business Travel's strength in corporate sourcing and compliance.
The MaXvantage alliance will initially focus on North American clients looking for comprehensive strategic meetings management services, which includes centralized sourcing, meeting planning, and data analysis and business insight.
"Executives know that meetings, events and incentive travel are critical components to executing their business strategy, but these activities have been under tremendous scrutiny since last fall," said Christine Duffy, president and CEO of St. Louis-based Maritz Travel. "MaXvantage is designed to enable corporations to feel confident continuing their investment in these highly valued programs."
That means companies must find ways "to be more strategic and transparent in their meetings programs, including finding ways to quantify return on meetings investment and participant experience, said Hervé Sedky, vice president and general manager of Global Business Partnerships, Advisory Services and Corporate Meetings Solutions for American Express Business Travel (AEBT).
In fact, the two companies have been working on the alliance for nine months. But the timing of the announcement was based on the forthcoming release of Treasury Department's post-AIG guidelines on what constitutes acceptable business travel practices for companies that have received federal bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), as well as the voluntary guidelines issued late last month by a coalition of business travel groups led by the U.S. Travel Association, that makes these issues particularly critical to corporate planners and executives who don't want to be called before congress or pilloried on the evening news.
Those regulations and guidelines are "a game changer" Duffy said, adding that she recently told her sales force that the involvement of corporate procurement departments in meetings, events, and incentives "is not going away."
With compliance expertise, a global footprint and strong penetration of Fortune 500 companies, AEBT will provide MaXvantage's sales force, its sourcing and contracting, and marketing. Maritz Travel will provide the expertise in the strategic and creative design and operation of meetings, events and incentive travel, as well as the supplier contacts and technology.
MaXvantage will focus on three groups: corporate clients, their procurement professionals and the end-user participants.
MaXvantage will help corporate clients achieve goals ranging from business development to increased productivity by managing the meetings process, negotiating cost-saving agreements and favorable contract terms with suppliers, and maximizing ROI by designing and running memorable meetings, events and incentive travel programs.
It will help procurement professionals manage costs and mitigate risk by developing transparent, company-specific spending policies that will increase accountability and consistency in planning meetings. It will also track, measure and benchmark purchasing behavior.
It will help ensure that corporate meetings and events are engaging, compelling, and valuable for the employees, customers, prospects and partners who attend.
"The practices of strategic meetings management have brought about a convergence of corporate travel and meetings, events and incentive travel," Duffy said. "This is the perfect time for American Express Business Travel and Maritz Travel to come together to provide an end-to-end solution."
Source: Incentive Magazine