Guest post by OneRez:

by Brian MacKenzie, president, OneRez

According to all indicators, corporate and leisure travelers want to be socially responsible when they travel. They would like to pick the greenest and most sustainable options, which also result in the lowest carbon footprint. As the travel industry wrestles with devising standards for evaluating what is green and how to select your travel supplier based on their environmental virtues, another important focus of social responsibility has gone unaddressed in the travel industry, the focus of Small Business (SB) procurement.

Virtually every other industry has addressed the issue of SB procurement allowing corporate customers to incorporate SB purchasing in their supply chain. Until now travel has been an excluded category for SB procurement, grouped with industries such as electrical and telecommunication utilities where there are no SB providers to pick from. This however is not the case in the lodging and car rental segments of the travel industry.

Although there are no SB airlines, the franchised and independent lodging and car rental businesses are the embodiment of what it means to be a SB. These two segments of the travel industry are a prime example of small businesses, many of which are minority and woman owned, competing with limited resources in a resource intensive industry. The risks and challenges that these types of business owners face every day in competition with the large corporate owned locations down the street or at the next rental counter, is why long ago the Federal government and responsible large corporations came up with SB procurement goals to help level the playing field.

Although these travel suppliers fly the flag of the most well known brands in travel, it is still a small business owner who is responsible for providing the service and who has taken the business risk of competing in this competitive industry. Without the capital, marketing power and IT systems of their large competitors, these suppliers are often at a disadvantage and deserve a leg up when it comes to spending by government agencies, government contractors and the Fortune 500.

Large corporate lodging providers with their ready access to capital can more easily weather the storm of economic downturns such as is currently the case. With a few exceptions, mortgage defaults by lodging companies are primarily representative of small franchised and independent business owners. Large corporate rental car companies can reallocate their fleets geographically to meet changes in their demand. It is the small business travel supplier who has the fewest options to adjust to the economic changes in the travel industry which has historically felt the brunt of the recessionary effects.

Next year for the first time, managed travelers will be able to select lodging and rental car providers based on their SB status through a new search feature on the Travelport GDS. The new search feature will fit seamlessly with the SB procurement initiatives of managed corporate travel programs. Social responsibility in travel means more than just being green. Encouraging the use of SB vendors is sound policy, and long overdue for the travel industry. Increasing and maintaining the ownership of lodging and rental car operations by small businesses is an important topic, and unlike the debate of what is green, it’s available now.

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The OneRez Network is a Small Business commerce platform allowing travel related businesses to certify and market their SB status. OneRez is a new brand in travel with an exclusive focus on connecting travelers with SB travel suppliers. We are the newest search criteria in the traditional and online travel booking process. We bring full price business and leisure customers to SB travel suppliers. We work with name brand and independent suppliers and distribute our SB content through TMCs and through our own consumer facing OTC site marketed as the go-to source for SB travel suppliers. Our mission is to establish OneRez as the standard for small business identification and marketing in travel.

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