Spurred by globalization, the business travel market is growing at a fast pace. The specialized travel organizations are expected to provide for greatly varied requirements, but also reports to client companies anxious to keep control of expenses, frequency of trips and manner of travel of their executives.

“Corporate travel has many peculiarities, given the frequent requirements for immediate adaptation which an ordinary travel agency cannot meet,” says Dimitris Arvanitis, managing director of Diners Cosmos Club — Corporate Travel.

“In order to best meet each company’s requirements, we have set up a team of specialized travel consultants. A consultant enters all the characteristics of a company into an advanced computerized system, which allows us to modify a trip according to a client’s preferences and instructions, without there being a need for them to be repeated each time. The consultant is available on a 24-hour basis to deal with any sudden problem or changes. Upon completion of the trip, the company is given an analytic report of cost items and all relevant features,” adds Arvanitis. In order to fully meet the new requirements, travel organizations tap the best of modern technology.

“We use a particularly advanced application for business travel management, which is a first in Greece. We have a data bank with more than 2,000 hotels throughout the world, with detailed descriptions and extensive photographic material. With call recognition, our travel consultant has simultaneously on the screen all relevant data for the specific client; we can also categorize the executives of a particular client company according to criteria it determines itself and corresponding to particular levels of service.”