When the COVID-19 Pandemic began, like many other industries in the world, the Travel Industry completely shut down. For the entirety of 2020, Grasp Technologies shifted its focus towards making internal improvements, team-building in a virtual workplace, and helping our clients as best as we could through a very difficult time.
2021 was different. Though Business Travel wasn't bouncing back as quick as we had all hoped, we were catching glimpses of what life was like before the pandemic. But as we bid farewell to 2021 and prepare for a better and stronger 2022, we would like to take a brief look at some of the best that has come out of the last year.
Best from our blog
One of our goals for 2021 was to really improve our connection with our clients and friends in the industry. What better way to do that than to put more focus into the content that we release.
Here are some of our favorite articles from 2021.
I Quit
Early in 2021, Grasp Technologies CEO/Founder Erik Mueller wrote about his 25 years of working in the Business Travel Industry and the 5 critical lessons he learned along the way.
I lived in fear for many years as I grew as a leader. I wanted to make sure everyone was happy all of the time, and I sacrificed everything for my customers and employees. My relationships with my wife and child were tested continuously through the first ten years as I poured everything into growing a business from scratch.
Knowing what I know now, would I go back and do things differently? NO.
The Complete Guide To Virtual Payments
As business travel begins to resume, there's a clear opportunity for companies to make improvements. The effectiveness of business travel is high—every dollar spent on business travel generates up to $14 in revenue for the business—but there's always room to optimize. What if you could cut the cost of business travel? That means that you could offer even more travel on the same budget, which could visibly heighten your ROI.
Is Your Travel Data More Of A Traveler Than You Are?
There tends to be perceived concerns from many companies when their data leaves a country or region. For many industries, it is possible to have data reside locally. When it comes to travel data however, it's an illusion because no one can really do it. Why? Because of the nature of travel data, and the vast number of companies involved.
Travel Data - An Evolution Of Decades
It might be surprising to some that the travel industry has been an early adopter of technology in that the first reservation systems were created in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the creation of ReserVec and the Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment. The latter became an acronym for the well-known SABRE system. One could have an entire article on travel industry acronyms and initialisms but we will defer that for another article.
These systems started as punched cards and transistorized computers to give you a possible visual of what this technology looked like. Cutting edge, I’m sure at the time and these existed decades before the arrival of the PC, Mac, and Internet.
Disney Slashes Card Reconciliation Errors and Boosts Cost Savings With GraspPAY
Chris Singh, Manager of Global Travel at The Walt Disney Company, had been with Disney for thirty-six years. And for 15 years, he focused on travel technology. One of his strategies included implementing an automated virtual payment technology for third-level data matching for card reconciliation. GraspPAY has been one of the key components of Disney’s virtual payment program.
Best from our webinars
It shouldn't be a secret to anyone at this point, but we love doing webinars. We always try to have fun in our webinars and especially during a time where human interaction might've been on the low end, it gave us an amazing opportunity to really engage with our clients and friends.
Here are our Top 3 webinars from 2021.
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On October 5th 2021, we announced our partnership with Traxo in a joint webinar.
For Travel Programs, data exists everywhere, in different formats and systems. Unfortunately, up to 40% of that data falls outside the traditional booking channels, making it invisible to travel managers. This has become a massive problem for end-to-end travel management and proper duty of care.
In 2021, we felt our excitement grow as we started seeing strong signs of a return to travel. And with that, comes a lot of prep work.
In this webinar, April Simpson of Corporate Travel Management, Juliann Pless, SVP of Travel Payments for CSI, and Stacey Mack, Senior Sales Director of Virtual Payments for Grasp Technologies discuss increased acceptance and advancements in Virtual Payments.
Are you ready for the Business Travel Surge in 2022?
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We closed out 2021 with a lively discussion on what the future holds and how TMCs, Travel Managers, and suppliers can chart their course as we look ahead, is now available.
Better and more holistic support
At Grasp Technologies we've always said, "Happy employees, happy customers, everybody wins". And when the pandemic hit, we paid extra attention to how we can help not only our clients, but our own employees as well.
As we all prepared for extended periods of lockdown, Grasp Technologies CEO/Founder Erik Mueller decided to start doing once-a-week company meetings. It began in 2020, but we carried that tradition into 2021.
These meetings were almost all optional and served as a great way to keep up to date with company news, chat with fellow employees and share news. It also gave us a great opportunity to have some fun with virtual holiday parties. We played games such as, "Where In The World Do These International Christmas Traditions Come From", "Guess The Halloween Movie", and more.
For our clients, we wanted to provide a more updated and comprehensive tool that will help them and their businesses.
We are excited to announce our newest resource for our customers: A full, self-service Knowledge Base containing everything you need to know about each of our products. All you need to do is log into your GraspDATA Portal, and the Knowledge Base is available to you.
Grasp Technologies Receives Excellent Reviews On Capterra
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Nothing makes us happier than knowing we have met our client's expectations.
When we began taking customer reviews on Capterra, we were thrilled to see all the wonderful feedback we got for our Support Team.
"Grasp support is great. They really care. They even come check on you from time to time. Nice newsletters, great training videos. Industry leaders (or pioneers at least) in this crazy travel industry where the only constant is change."
Tradeshows
Business Travel Comes Together At GBTA 2021
After almost 2 years of events being cancelled, lockdowns, and anxiety throughout the industry, Business Travel returned to GBTA 2021. With COVID protocols in place, one thing was clear, above all else: people were just happy to come together and be with one another. And we at Grasp Technologies were thrilled to be there too.
Grasp Technologies At The Business Travel Show Europe 2021
Business Travel Show Europe returned to ExCeL London. "As Europe’s largest specialised exhibition and conference bringing together over 8,800 European travel professionals, this long established and reputable event provides corporate travel buyers and managers with the suppliers, knowledge and contacts to help create and develop successful travel programmes." (Business Travel News).
Looking ahead
We would like to thank everyone in the industry for working hard to try and bring Travel back strong and healthy. We are looking forward to 2022!
Don't forget to stay up to date with our future webinars.