BUSINESS TRAVEL JARGON BUSTER

Average Daily Rate, a metric widely used in the hospitality industry to indicate the average revenue earned for an occupied room on a given day.

The percentage of travel bookings made using an online booking tool.

Extra amenities that a traveller can purchase while traveling. Examples include onboard food and beverages, checked baggage, seat upgrades, and priority boarding.

Best Available Rate, the lowest available rate of the day that is available for guests to book, usually used in reference to dynamic hotel rates.

When a hotel bills a customer’s TMC directly for the traveller’s stay. Travellers don’t need to pay for the room or tax at the hotel, although they can still be asked to put a card on file upon check-in for incidentals.

A combination of business and leisure travel, also known as blended travel.

Traveller ticketing information collected during the booking transaction before the trip is taken.

Someone who is travelling specifically for work. This is a trip that is essential to work, it could be a meeting with suppliers, partners, or to visit other branches of a company.

A carbon footprint is a measure of an organisation’s or product’s carbon emissions. They usually cover all greenhouse gases and are expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) (see ‘greenhouse gases’). However, sometimes they only cover CO2, so it’s important to be clear when making comparisons.

Carbon neutral means reducing carbon emissions to the point where a balance can be reached between the amount of carbon being emitted and the amount being removed from the atmosphere through practices such as carbon capture or carbon offsetting.

For unavoidable or difficult-to-reduce emissions, organisations can choose to purchase carbon credits to remove the equivalent emissions elsewhere. Carbon offsetting schemes often focus on projects that absorb carbon, such as tree planting or environmental restoration, but may also include emissions-reducing schemes such as renewable energy projects.

Clean energy is energy that is derived from natural, non-polluting, UK resources that are capable of being replenished in a short time scale, such as wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal and hydropower.

Climate change is a long-term shift in global weather patterns or average temperatures.

The earth’s surface is warming and many of the warmest years on record have existed in the past 20 years. A rise in temperature can lead to extreme weather patterns such as floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms.

An agreement between two or more airlines which allows one carrier to market and collect payment for a flight operated by another carrier.

A rate paid to or retained by a travel agency or other third party as a commission for booking an airline ticket, rental car or hotel room.

A rate negotiated between a hotel company and a travel agency group.

COP stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’, a group of nearly 200 countries who have signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP meet at summits once a year to work towards reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

Convention and Visitors Bureau, an organization that provides resources to local communities and travelers with the aim of promoting a destination for travel and meetings.

An employer’s legal duty to care for their employees.

A pricing strategy that utilizes variable prices instead of fixed ones, also known as flat rates, to account for changes in demand.

Electronic Miscellaneous Document, an electronic document issued by airlines for the collection and settlement of ancillary services.

Enterprise Resource Planning, a type of software that organizations use to manage business activities such as accounting, procurement and risk management.

ESG (Environmental, social and corporate governance) is a common term for measuring the sustainability criteria of an investment in a company or business.

Expense policies are dynamic sets of guidelines created and enforced by companies that employees can turn to for understanding business-related expenses and travel costs.

Expense management software is technology used by companies to authorize, manage, and edit employee expense claims.

Accommodations that offer long-term housing facilities for travellers.

A loose term referring to the airline registered within a specific country or state which may allow it certain privileges.

Traveller ticketing information collected after the trip is taken.

Global Distribution System. A GDS is the network that agencies use to complete transactions with suppliers. Airlines, hotels, car hire etc, feed their information into the GDS so that companies can check availability, create bookings, manage changes and more.

Greenwashing is the act of making an unsubstantiated or misleading claim about the environmental benefits of a product, service, technology or company practice.

An account showing charges or payments made during a guest’s stay.

The International Air Transport Association, a trade association for many of the world’s airlines.

Any air, car or hotel booking a traveler makes outside of corporate policy.

A metric used in the airline industry that measures the percentage of available seating capacity that has been filled with passengers.

A type of payment mechanism held by TMCs and used by their clients to pay for travel. Typically it is issued for an entire company or entire cost-center. Access is usually given virtually, although physical cards can be provided.

These are the cheaper, no-frills airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair. They mostly service short haul routes and offer basic fares with add ons at an additional cost, things like baggage, meals, flexibility etc.

The least expensive ticket price consistent with a corporation’s travel policy.

Last room availability, a pre-negotiated contract between a business and a hotel the means that as long as a hotel has a room for sale, then a traveler from that company has the right to buy it at the contracted rate.

Managed Travel is a business travel programme in which employees book travel within pre-established guidelines, designed to control spend and help enhance travellers’ safety.

Marine fares are specialist fares for the marine and offshore industry. They are designed to meet the specific needs of crews within the marine and shipping industry. Marine fares are only available through specialist contracts between an airline and travel management company. These specialist fares allow for more flexibility, increased baggage allowance and discounts.

A transaction fee that the merchant must pay the card issuer whenever a customer uses a debit or credit card.

New Distribution Capability, a standard developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to enable airlines to distribute tickets and ancillary content, such as baggage, in-flight Wi-Fi and meals in real-time, helping to personalise the booking experience and package services.

The Next Generation Storefront or NGS is a set of data standards that enable distribution channels to better present, sort, and find the airline products and services travellers are looking for.

Net zero is the balance between the amount of emitted greenhouse gases and the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere. We hit net zero when the amount we add is no more than the amount taken away.

OBT is a corporate-approved software tool that lets organisations book, manage, and monitor their business trip itineraries

Online Travel Agency, a third-party internet booking site for reselling travel services and related products.

Passenger name record. The reference number associated with a booking. It can be used for both solo traveller’s and multiple travellers travelling together. Using a PNR allows airlines and TMCs to easily access your trip details within the GDS booking system. A PNR may be referred to as a record locator or a booking reference.

Renewable energy refers to energy from renewable non-fossil sources, namely wind, solar (both solar thermal and solar photovoltaic) and geothermal energy, ambient energy, tide, wave and other ocean energy, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment plant gas, and biogas.

Revenue Per Available Room is a hotel performance metric used to assess a property’s ability to fill its available rooms at an average rate that is calculated by dividing a hotel’s total guestroom revenue by the room count.

Request for proposals, a business document that describes services that a company requires in order to solicits bids from qualified suppliers.

Sustainable Aviation Fuels are biofuels used to power aircraft that have similar properties to conventional jet fuel but with a smaller carbon footprint and currently a much higher cost. Depending on the feedstock and technologies used to produce it, SAF can reduce life cycle GHG emissions dramatically compared to conventional jet fuel.

Service Level Agreement, a document that defines the level of service expected by a customer from a supplier that sets service delivery metrics and can include incentives and penalties based on performance.

Travel Management Company, a travel agency that specializes in helping businesses organize their travel programmes.

Travel manager is the person responsible for a company’s travel policy. They develop the policy, manage (preferred) supplier relationships, monitor and approve traveller itineraries and bookings, process T&E reports and more.

T&E stands for “Travel and Expenses” and encompasses the operational costs that are associated with business travel.

A company’s rules and procedures that outline how employees should book, expense and get approval for business travel.

Reducing emissions to absolute zero (in contrast to net zero, which involves a degree of offsetting to balance out emissions). In practice, this is extremely difficult for most organisations to achieve overall but it is possible for some processes or activities, such as zero carbon power through renewable energy.