Corporate & Business · NPO & Social Impact · Travel & Mobility
A negotiated fare is worth nothing if the booking never reaches it
Travel was spread across business units, travellers, cost centres and suppliers, with different rules for fares, hotels, vehicle hire, refunds, changes, approvals and reporting. Supplier terms were not self-executing: discounts depended on carrier, fare class, route, traffic allocation and use of the appointed channel. The need was one controlled travel operating model, not a better succession of isolated bookings.
- 17.3%
- accommodation cost base modelled
- 6% → 12%
- corporate airline discount doubled
- 3
- categories brought under one model
- 12 mo
- travel activity reconstructed
Proof context: A multi-business-unit organisation with national travel demand
The operating problem
Travel becomes inefficient when every booking is its own transaction
- Fragmented data. Air, hotel, guest-house and vehicle transactions were mixed in source reports and had to be separated before demand could be understood at all.
- Supplier terms were not self-executing. Discounts depended on carrier, fare class, route, traffic allocation and use of an appointed travel channel.
- After-sales costs mattered. Refundability, cancellation penalties, ticket changes and no-shows could reverse part of the benefit of a cheaper headline fare.
- Behaviour affected cost. Late booking, traveller preference, requested times and fare availability all showed up in the data as reasons the cheapest theoretical option was not used.
- Accommodation needed geographic logic. Room price had to be weighed with area, distance, quality, trip length and historical production.
- Vehicle hire hid its variables. Mileage bands, super waivers, excesses, non-cancellation charges, class equivalence and secondary-supplier availability all moved total cost.
What KuTh built
Data and sourcing on one side, policy and workflow on the other
Historic travel data was rebuilt into usable air, accommodation and vehicle-hire views, then used to negotiate supplier agreements and preferred programmes. Accommodation was treated as a geographic and service-design problem: historic stays were grouped by province, city and area so suppliers could be shown the volume actually available in each location, rather than being asked for a generic corporate rate.
Alongside that, traveller profiles, cost centres, approvals, quote comparison, confirmations, invoice control and management reporting were designed as one connected workflow. Supplier contracts create an opportunity; policy is what converts that opportunity into repeatable behaviour.
Additional commercial benefit
Several mechanisms, not one blanket discount
Scroll table sideways →
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Accommodation model — combined worked cost base | ≈17.3% reduction |
| Sandton hotel model — worked cost base | ≈28.9% reduction |
| Regional land-arrangement component | ≈15.0% reduction |
| Corporate airline discount, one carrier | 6% → 12% |
| Domestic air, another national carrier | ≈12.6% average negotiated discount |
| International air, that carrier | ≈11.2% average negotiated discount |
| Low-cost airline | 10% negotiated on eligible fares |
| Vehicle hire | No-show fee exposure removed via an alternative supplier |
A fare discount is only one component of total trip cost. Servicing flexibility, traffic allocation, refund and change behaviour, mileage bands and waiver structures all affect what is actually realised — which is why these were negotiated together rather than chased individually.
Operating control delivered
Request to reporting, as one information flow
- Traveller profiles, travel-policy rules, and business-unit and cost-centre control applied before booking.
- One request covering flights, accommodation and vehicle hire, followed by consolidated quotes and approval routing.
- Order, confirmation and invoice linked back to the approved requirement.
- Reporting by spend, savings, missed savings, cost centre, traveller, supplier and agent performance.
- Preferred-supplier programmes backed by negotiated agreements and ongoing data review.
Why missed savings matter
Measuring what was not saved turns reporting into a feedback loop
A mature travel programme measures not only what was saved, but where an available contracted or policy-compliant option was not used. Without that, travel reporting is a retrospective spend statement rather than a management instrument.
Contracted value is realised only when eligible bookings reach the right supplier and fare class — so traffic-allocation rules, not traveller preference alone, determine whether a negotiated agreement produces anything.
Capability lineage
How this fed into HerTho Travel
The engagement showed that travel sits at the intersection of procurement, service operations, technology, supplier relationships and traveller support — a combination that is difficult to sustain as an occasional consulting workstream, and better delivered through a dedicated operating capability.
Sourcing, policy, traveller profiles, supplier agreements, hotel and vehicle programmes, refunds and changes, reporting and booking workflow became part of the capability base that helped inform HerTho Travel. HerTho is therefore more than a booking desk: booking is one step inside a broader operating and commercial control environment.
Evidence and publication boundary
The percentages above are the additional financial benefit. The principal result was the repeatable managed-travel architecture controlling demand, supplier terms, approvals, fulfilment, servicing and reporting. Accommodation figures are worked models on a reconstructed cost base, not audited post-implementation savings.
Client and supplier identities, fare and rate schedules and negotiated contract terms are withheld. The travel-management application described was specified in four design phases; this page does not claim it was built.
Supporting documents