On August 28th, 1991 Søren Schødt and Claus Johanson together with a group of large Danish companies founded the consultancy company Danish Travel Pool (DTP). From the very beginning, DTP offered expert advice on corporate travel.
Two years later, DTP set up its own travel office as a counterpart to the established corporate travel agencies. This was the beginning of TravelpoolEurope as we know it today: a shared service centre for corporate travel – the way our members want it and on their terms.
TPE now has travel and management activities in 31 countries and handles a travel budget of more than 260 million DKK. The demand for TPE’s global End to End solution is increasing among members.
TPE implements new user-controlled member portal which provides the members with easy and quick access to travel booking, management and company-specific travel information. As a new feature, it is now also possible for member companies to upload and edit relevant news for their travellers.
TPE offers a global credit card program as a part of the expense management solution and is thereby able to automate the management process for companies worldwide.
As of May 1st, 2012 TPE has reached 32 members.
In its 20th year of existence, TPE had 28 members and travel activities worth more than 194 million DKR in 2011.
TPEs travel reimbursement solution, Expenture, is entering into a new agreement with Concur Technologies, the leading supplier of travel expense management solutions. Based on a thorough market analysis it is estimated that upgrading to the newest solution with Concur CE provides Expenture’s clients with a unique combination of Concur software and a complete BPO solution and thus the best terms on the market.
Via its subsidiary company TMT, TPE developed software for ConTgo. ConTgo is specialists in mobile phone services aimed at the corporate travel industry.
TPE consolidated its position in a time of financial crisis by having more member companies and organisations that remain strong during a slump.In 2009 TPE’s members included not only a number of large Danish companies but also trade, public and humanitarian organisations.
In 2008 the members of TPE purchased more than 200 million DKR worth of travels. This makes TPE an even more powerful negotiating partner and counterpart to the traditional corporate travel agencies.
TPE repurchased the travel reimbursement solution and strengthened its core business. The subsidiary company Expenture A/S was sold.
TPE purchased the activities in BTC Data and assumed the rights to its back-office system, which is a data warehouse system. The acquisition included clients such as FCm Travel and Lego.
TPE’s subsidiary company TMT ApS developed a programme, WebCrawler, which was able to scan more than 100 different websites. This programme considerably reduced the time it took to book a flight ticket and also helped automate the billing process.
In 2005-2006 TPE entered into agreements with a number of Swedish and Norwegian suppliers of various travel related services (hotels, etc.) in order to consolidate its activities in Scandinavia further.
TPE’s subsidiary company ePostTrip A/S changed the name to Expenture A/S and joined its investors in distributing the travel reimbursement solution to external clients as a complete, outsourced solution.
First in Europe to introduce "direct booking"
To meet with our members’ demand and help reduce their costs, TPE opened a department for group travel. The purpose of this was to professionalise the area and create a more transparent price structure.
TPE established a knowledge centre for custom-made reports. The reports help companies bring their travel expenditure into focus.
Coop Norden became a member of TPE and an increasing number of our existing members opened up branches in Sweden. TPE opened a branch for our Swedish travellers and travel purchasing agents, and the employees in this branch speak Swedish.
We changed our name from Danish Travel Pool (DTP) to TravelpoolEurope (TPE). The new name more aptly reflected our increase in activities all over Europe.
DTP implemented travel reimbursement in all of Europe for one of its members, General Electric (GE).
DTP and Andersen Consulting (later Deloitte) developed the subsidiary company ePostTrip A/S (later Expenture A/S). The subsidiary was put in charge of administration, development and sale of the DTP travel reimbursement solution to the existing member companies.
Concur agreed to deliver software for DTP’s travel reimbursement solution.
DTP attracted a lot of media attention thanks to the SAS case, and took advantage of this by drawing attention to the lack of competition in the Scandinavian air travel industry, and also attempted to get Danish politicians involved in the issue.
DTP and the National Consumer Agency of Denmark attempted to put pressure on SAS in order to get SAS to cover the loss that DTP incurred as a result of the cartel-like collaboration between SAS and Maersk Air. It was estimated that the collaboration had cost the members of DTP several million due to artificially high ticket prices.
Total travel budget of more than 100 million DKK.
In its 10th year of existence, DTP had 21 members which all in all had 55,000 travellers and travel activities worth more than 100 million DKR annually.
DTP added yet another supplier and also offered management of Brobizz, which reduced the amount of administrative work in the member companies significantly.
DTP developed a method of ensuring accurate pricing in online booking, and this method was also used to report on deviations and lost savings. These reports helped members comply with the travel policy of their company.
DTP started managing meetings and conferences as well, and entered into agreements with various Nordic businesses that offered meeting and conference facilities.
DTP and GetThere launched a member portal where the members could book online and get advice on booking and travel expenditure.
DTP was among the first in Denmark to implement using bonus points (that had been earned during a business trip) when purchasing tickets for a new business trip. The new element in this was that the bonus points went to the company rather than the employee.
DTP opened a travel management office of its own. The travel office worked as a shared service centre with a central purchasing, counselling and control function. The aim was to help members save money on corporate travel via increased purchasing power, centralised know -how and managing the travel activities of member companies in a more efficient manner.
Danish Travel Pool (DTP) was founded by managing director Søren Schødt and Claus Johansson as a response to the growing need for independent external consultancy in the area of corporate travel. DTP started out with six members, including Nordisk Re (owned by General Electric) which also contributed in identifying this need.