Singapore – Having completed a seven-month process to integrate Rosenbluth into its organisation, American Express Corporate Services has announced its relaunch as American Express Business Travel (Amex BT), with a new business strategy, branding and marketing campaign.

Amex acquired Rosenbluth in October 2003, strengthening its position as one of the largest corporate travel agencies in the world.

The new branding represents a move by the company from a country/market-based structure to a pan-regional functional structure. As the fastest-growing region for both inbound and outbound business travel, Asia-Pacific has been the first to be moved into the new structure.

Amex BT vice-president and general manager, corporate travel Asia Pacific/Australia, Mr Kyle Davis, said: “Asia-Pacific is showing significant growth, particularly the increase in business travel as a category. Going forward, we will be much more global and pan-regional in our approach and in our solution offerings in transaction processing and value creation.

“The integration has given us more scale to develop and launch new products more quickly. We have chosen the best from both companies that we want to push forward and customers now have a bigger menu to choose from.”

At press time, Mr Davies declined to comment on when and how much the company would be spending on the marketing campaign to push its new products, but said it should have the same rollout worldwide. The tagline that has been adopted is Online, Offline, All Around the World, Experience Matters.

He added that the name change, although subtle, was important in defining to the marketplace what the company represented.

“The Corporate Services in our name didn’t appeal to small and medium enterprises because it gave them the impression that we only serve large clients. Business Travel is a better definition of what we offer and that is services and products for companies of all shapes and sizes. Our new name redefines what it is we provide to customers both locally and globally.”

Inevitably some employees had to be let go because of duplication of resources, but they were mostly at the management rather than the travel consultant levels and the integration was accomplished with “quite amicable results”.

Rosenbluth was not the first company Amex had acquired, others included Thomas Cook’s corporate arm, but it scored the highest in customer retention.

In 2003, American Express Company’s travel related services (including card, travel, merchant, network businesses, travellers cheques and prepaid services group) posted a net income of US$2.43 billion, up 14 percent from a year ago.

The new product portfolio includes:

• eCLIPSE Advisors – procurement consulting services to help save on travel management spend.
• Global Security Suite – locate travellers anywhere, anytime.
• Global TRAX Suite – technology enabling users to find savings otherwise lost for unused tickets and negotiated hotel rates.
• Corporate Meeting Solutions – a meetings expense management approach that delivers on savings, process enhancements and meetings spend.
• American Express Online – a personalised travel portal and global online booking platform.
• Preferred Extras – American Express preferred savings on air, hotel and car rentals.
• Intelligence Reporting Suite – the industry’s leading reporting capabilities.