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Wolff & Samson PC
Counsellors At Law Corporate Travel
Among the defining themes of the 2004 Association of Corporate Travel Executives global conference in Orlando was the challenge posed by on-line travel agencies to traditional "bricks and mortar" travel management companies. Driven by a passion for their technology, forged with lean cost-structures and extolled by their youthful CEOs, the OTAs augured the demise of the old-line, overhead-laden TMCs. The TMCs countered that they would continue their drive to automate, implementing cost-saving tools when possible, without compromising the professional service that their customers have come to expect and that OTAs are incapable of delivering. Both OTAs and TMCs alike observed that OTAs either were expanding the number of travel counselors within their ranks or acquiring TMCs with the infrastructure to provide professional service. Neither the roundtable discussions in which I participated, nor the discussions among executives of the agency companies irrefutably anointed one business model as the clear victor over the other. To the extent that there was any consensus of opinion, it was that the two models would converge over time. TMCs would continue to deploy technology to the end of streamlining their operations and delivering service in a more cost-effective manner, and the OTAs would continue to enhance the service component of their businesses by employing more travel counselors. Over time, the line of demarcation separating OTAs and TMCs would likely blur, if not disappear entirely. A corollary of the "convergence theory" is that travel counselors will, in fact, survive the onslaught of technology and, indeed, proliferate with OTAs. Should this come as a surprise to industry professionals? To one industry professional, the answer to this seemingly rhetorical question is apparent. As a practicing attorney for almost 18 years, I have witnessed the transformation of the legal profession through technology. Managing a full workload, as well as clients' expectations, used to be facilitated by the one-day hiatus between the time that a client called to discuss a new matter and the attorney's receipt, by overnight courier, of the documents to be reviewed. Widespread use of the fax machine compressed that 24-hour time period to approximately 30 minutes, the time it typically took for a client's administrative assistant to fax the document to counsel and for the faxed copy to be routed to the attorney's desk. The advent of e-mail enabled a client to provide materials to his counsel instantaneously and wrought a concomitant change in the client's expectations. The impact of technology on the legal profession has extended far beyond the timing and procedural changes effected by fax machines and e-mail. Entrepreneurs have developed software that enables the layperson to draft a will, create an employee handbook and prepare a myriad of agreements that companies require in their day-to-day operations. Websites have been launched for the purpose of dispensing legal advice. Although I have never sampled any of these products or explored their cost, one can safely assume that they are far less expensive than the fees charged by most law firms for like tasks. Will these tech innovations be the death knell of attorneys? Most law firms have not viewed tech as a threat to their existence. Law firms tend to adopt technology that facilitates the delivery of legal services but takes comfort in the knowledge that the practice of law is and will remain quintessentially a personal and professional service that cannot be rendered by computers. Will the software program that produced a will advise the client of changes in the tax laws that may affect the client's estate plan? Will an employee handbook created from a software program alert a company to the importance of employee training to reduce the incidence of harassment claims, advise the client of the appropriate manner to investigate a claim of harassment or provide updates to the evolving landscape of employment law? These professional services, which every competent and conscientious attorney practicing in those fields should provide, cannnot be delivered electronically. Likewise, professional travel counselors will not become obsolete as a result of technology introduced in the corporate travel business. Technology that saves time and money will continue to be adopted and will enhance the efficiency, and be accretive to the value, of travel counselors. A number of variables, however, can affect the travel experience - traveler preferences and schedules, airline schedules, company travel policies, security measures, complex travel itineraries, varying documentation and health requirements among the countries of the world, health concerns and terrorism. Given that, an experienced travel counselor cannot, in my view, ever be replaced entirely by technology. Thus, the debate about the relative merits of OTAs and TMCs at the ACTE global conference was simply a new twist to the much older debate about the feasibility of replacing professional services with technology. © |