PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 15, Feb. 16, 2006

New service offered whether traveling for business or pleasure

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@uiuc.edu

Going places? The Office of Business and Financial Services has a new tool that can help you get there.

The new Preferred Travel Agencies program provides a convenient means for employees to book business and personal travel arrangements – and obtain the best rates.

The UI has contracted with four full-service travel agencies  – Hobbit Travel, Suzi Davis Travel, Hub Travel and Franklin Travel – to help employees with their business and personal travel needs. The Preferred Travel Agencies offer one-stop shopping and can book airline or rail reservations, lodging, airport transportation, car rentals and provide information on immunization requirements for international travel. Employees can book travel arrangements 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the agencies’ online booking tools or they can seek personal assistance from the agencies’ designated UI travel agents. Each agency has assigned their senior-most travel agents to work with UI employees, but the associated fees are lower for booking online versus contacting a travel agent.

Each preferred agency’s Web site uses “web scraper” technology to simultaneously search the Web sites of airlines and online travel services such as Expedia to find the most competitive airfares.  Employees also can take advantage of each agency’s last-minute deals and special discounts that are on their Web sites.

To book arrangements through a preferred agency, each traveler and their travel planner must visit the agency’s Web site (see last paragraph) to set up customer profiles, which permit travelers to designate authorized travel arrangers if desired. The profiles, which are customized to comply with the university’s policies and guidelines, contain travelers’ preferences for seats, hotels and car rentals, frequent flyer numbers and other pertinent information. The travel agents and the online systems also check each reservation to monitor compliance with university travel policies and guidelines, but UI employees are responsible for ensuring that their business travel arrangements are in line with the policies.

The UI started the program, which went into effect in mid-January, by leveraging its buying power with that of 12 other Illinois public universities that belong to the Illinois Public Higher Education Cooperative.  The UI chose four preferred agencies from the pool of contracts awarded by IPHEC after it requested proposals.

The Travel Team, which is chaired by Diane Moody, assistant director of policies and procedures in the Office of Business and Financial Services, and includes representatives from the purchasing departments of all three UI campuses, University Payables and the Corporate Card Office, is coordinating the program and future travel service initiatives.

“We had an extensive list of criteria that we wanted the agencies to meet, such as 800 numbers, international desks and after-hours service,” said Cathy Young, travel/transportation coordinator for OBFS and a member of the Travel Team. The most important criterion, however, was the availability of online booking tools.

A survey of the IPHEC members on employees’ preferences and travel habits revealed that 65 percent of UI faculty and staff members book their travel online. The survey also showed that the UI faculty and staff members wanted a program that would streamline travel planning and provide some guidance for less experienced travel planners.

The UI spends approximately $12 million annually on business travel, $7 million of which is for people from the Urbana campus. An advisory council will be formed that will determine how to further develop the travel program, and one of the council’s initiatives likely will be negotiating discounted fares with airlines and enhancing the online tools based upon the data collected through the new program.

Departments are encouraged to try the new system and give feedback, Young said. In the near future, OBFS will schedule campus-wide training sessions and will give departmental training sessions upon request.

Details about the Preferred Travel Agency program, including links to the four agencies’ sites, are on the OBFS Web site, www.obfs.uillinois.edu.

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