Hi Steven, Below is an example of and email communication with one of our naysayers:

The main reasons for this program and the requirement to use it are savings, duty of care and customer support. We have discounts and corporate partnerships with all the major airlines, three direct hotel chain discounts at xx%, TMC discounts of xx% off all hotels chains, local discounts, multiple direct hotel partnerships and car rental discounts with Avis/Budget and Enterprise/National (these rates include the university required auto insurance coverage). Tulane does not use one source for travel pricing and services, we negotiate and book directly with hotels, airlines, and car rental suppliers. All rates booked through the online travel tool or with our agency are changeable, cancellable, and reusable, unless indicated otherwise.

Tulane’s travel partners will not count travel booked outside of our booking tools (Concur & World Travel) towards the discounts or corporate traveler perk programs. Booking through these channels is how we grow our travel program, increase rebates, accrue airline change fee waivers, track unused tickets, and add additional discounts for university-wide negotiated savings. We also enroll all international trips with our emergency insurance provider Global Rescue, this is required. Considering recent events, it is essential that we have access to our employee travel itineraries for risk management and to assist with travel cancellations, waivers, and refunds if applicable.

There are many additional reasons why we have a managed travel program and we have seen significant and consistent savings for the university. To continue to save and grow our travel programs, we insist on our travelers’ cooperation by purchasing travel within the university’s travel policies. This includes the policy on paying for travel, attached.

It is extremely important to Tulane that all travel is booked within policy (i.e., this is the only way we can track unused tickets, report our spend to hotel chains and major airlines, etc.). If an employee is traveling for business using Tulane funds or grant money given to Tulane, they must follow the policy to be reimbursed. I’ve attached the university travel policy.

We are here to improve the travel experience, provide competitive pricing and to support our travelers when there are travel disruptions. Please feel free to reach out to me for assistance or with questions about the program anytime.

Great answer Laney!

I think Laney nailed it!

Another consideration that I know Tulane benefited from as well: tickets booked through our TMC Partner and thusly our managed contracts give us broader flexibility to reuse unused ticket credits. Thinking of credits due to COVID specifically: we were able to recoup nearly $600K in unused ticket credits by working with our TMC and airline partners and moving these funds to UATP cards. We did not have this same flexibility for tickets which were booked directly with the airlines and thusly not on contract. With budgets being so tight, this was a HUGE win for us and one of the reasons we were able to convince our Chancellor to approve a travel booking mandate.

Laney's answers are spot on and the same reason VCU has a travel management company. Duty of Care for our travelers being the top reason. When COVID shut the world down, we were able to easily locate all of our travelers.