Global Traveler: Tell us about your career with BCD Travel and the industry.
Mark Majewski: I oversee BCD Travel’s online fulfillment, T-24 Emergency After-hours Service and India/off-shore operations. Part of my job includes acting as a primary liaison with BCD Travel’s vendors and customers, often consulting with customers on the strategic direction of their travel programs. I’m still an agent at heart, since that’s how I got into the travel industry 28 years ago. I eventually moved into account management and sales while working at two large travel agencies before landing at WorldTravel BTI, whose parent company recently merged it with several other travel entities to form the world’s third-largest travel management company, BCD Travel.

GT: BCD Travel has a new look and name. What does this mean to the corporate travel planner?
MM: BCD Travel strives to simplify and streamline the corporate travel process. How do we do this? By helping companies manage and control the movement of their people, information and resources. For the corporate travel planner, we provide an integrated technology platform and a number of toolsets, along with reach into 96 countries around the world. This allows us to handle any travel need, and to work with travel planners to track every trip, every traveler and the costs incurred throughout every journey.

GT: How can BCD Travel best help corporate travelers reach their goals in this ever-competitive global market?
MM: All of our services — whether you’re talking about pure transactions, travel planning, cost management, consulting, technology — ultimately are geared toward providing a hassle-free, productive experience for the traveler. Global travelers, in particular, face a lot of hassles because of the complexity of international travel — from choosing a quality hotel room to selecting the best places to eat and meet. For example, hand-carrying technical equipment, like a PowerPoint projector, into India without proper documentation and approval could delay the process of admittance. At BCD Travel, we supplement the knowledge of frequent flyers to ensure that they have an efficient, pleasant and productive trip. This benefits even the seasoned travelers. I’ve traveled to India 12 times and there are still new things for me to learn about the local culture and customs process.

GT: How else do you help the premium traveler get to emerging markets throughout the world?
MM: A big issue for travelers is understanding the secondary markets and how to avoid the primary markets. In India, for example, the primary markets are Mumbai and Delhi. If you know the secondary markets such as Chennai and Bangalore, you can go directly there and avoid the hassles of connecting in Mumbai. At BCD Travel, we strive to make the travel experience less stressful so the business traveler can be more productive. In the end, that helps a company’s bottom line. Because our new network reaches into 96 countries, including the emerging markets of China and India, we can help make business travelers more productive — no matter where their travels might take them.