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Inntel’s Head of Bid Management, Stuart Tandy, cuts through the noise surrounding the corporate travel management tender process, sharing his top 10 travel tender truths below.
Many travel management tenders claim to compare suppliers objectively, yet pricing models often make true comparisons almost impossible. Transaction fees, implementation costs, technology charges, rebates, commissions, and service fees are rarely presented in the same way.
Procurement teams spend valuable time trying to normalise pricing instead of evaluating value. Suppliers spend time explaining commercial models rather than demonstrating outcomes. The result? Decisions based on incomplete cost visibility.
Require all bidders to complete a standardized pricing template and calculate costs using the same travel volume assumptions. Transparency should be a scored criterion rather than an afterthought.
If pricing can’t be compared easily, it’s probably not transparent enough.
Every bidder promises savings, service excellence, innovation, and traveller satisfaction. Few provide evidence that proves they can consistently deliver.
Buyers are left comparing marketing claims rather than measurable performance. Suppliers who genuinely deliver value can struggle to stand out from those with polished presentations.
Ask for outcomes, not promises… about service level performance, client retention rates, adoption metrics, comparable customer references, real implementation results.
Evidence should carry more weight than ambition.
The strongest proposal isn’t the one that promises the most. It’s the one that proves the most.
Travel tenders rarely involve one decision-maker. Procurement wants value. Finance wants savings. Travelers want convenience. Security wants visibility. Leadership wants confidence.
When stakeholders aren’t aligned upfront, suppliers receive conflicting requirements and evaluation criteria become blurred. Decisions take longer and satisfaction with the outcome often declines.
Align stakeholders before the tender starts. Agree on evaluation criteria, weighting, and desired outcomes early. A well-run tender starts with internal alignment—not supplier presentations.
The biggest obstacle in many tenders isn’t supplier selection. It’s stakeholder consensus.
Many travel management tenders ask suppliers to demonstrate understanding of the business. Yet generic questions often produce generic responses.
Procurement teams receive hundreds of pages of content that sound remarkably similar. Suppliers struggle to showcase genuine differentiation, and buyers struggle to identify it.
Replace broad questions with specific business scenarios. Instead of: “Describe your service model.” Ask: “How would you improve traveller adoption in a program with 40% offline bookings?”
Specific questions generate meaningful answers. Better questions create better proposals.
Most tenders devote significant attention to selecting a supplier and far less attention to transitioning to one.
Implementation risks emerge after contract signature… delayed go-lives, poor adoption, integration challenges, service disruption, missed savings targets… the list goes on.
Evaluate implementation with the same rigor as commercial and service proposals.
Ask: Who will lead the transition? What are the milestones? What risks have been identified? How will success be measured?
The best proposal means little if the implementation fails.
Behind every tender response is a bid team chasing content, approvals, pricing, technical input, references, and sign-offs from multiple stakeholders.
Last-minute contributions lead to rushed reviews, inconsistent messaging, and unnecessary stress. Quality often suffers despite everyone’s best efforts.
Treat bids like projects. Create clear ownership, interim deadlines, stakeholder accountability and coordinated, centralised tracking. Winning bids are rarely the result of heroic last-minute efforts. They’re the result of disciplined planning.
The biggest threat to bid quality is usually not competition, it’s poor coordination.
Bid teams answer many of the same questions repeatedly yet often start from scratch because information is fragmented or outdated.
Highly skilled people spend time searching for content instead of improving it. Inconsistencies creep into proposals and efficiency suffers.
Build a living knowledge library containing approved responses, case studies, customer success stories, proof points and compliance information.
Content should evolve with every bid, not be recreated for every bid. The fastest way to improve bid quality is often improving content accessibility.
Many tenders evolve after launch. Clarifications, stakeholder feedback, and requirement changes can significantly alter the scope.
Bid teams spend valuable time reworking content instead of refining it. Confusion increases and response quality can decline.
Manage change proactively. Maintain a clarification log, version control on bid responses, impact assessments and clear communication channels.
Change isn’t the problem. Unmanaged change is. The most successful bid teams don’t avoid change, they control it.
Most travel management companies offer similar core capabilities. Yet many proposals focus on describing services rather than demonstrating value.
When suppliers sound the same, procurement naturally focuses on price. Differentiation disappears and the conversation becomes transactional.
Lead with outcomes. Don’t say: “We provide 24/7 support.” Say: “Our service model reduced after-hours escalations by 32% for a global client.”
Outcomes are memorable. Features are expected.
If your proposal sounds like everyone else’s, buyers will compare it like everyone else’s.
Not every opportunity is worth winning. Yet bid teams are often asked to pursue tenders with aggressive pricing expectations, unclear requirements, or significant delivery risks.
Winning the contract can become the start of the problem rather than the end of it… margin erosion, scope disputes, service challenges, resource strain
Apply rigorous bid qualification. Ask: “Can we deliver successfully?”, “Can we deliver profitably?”, “Does the opportunity align with our strategy?”, “Is the client set up for success?”
Sometimes the best bid decision is deciding not to bid. Winning should never come at the expense of delivering.
The most effective travel tenders don’t happen when buyers and suppliers work harder. They happen when buyers and suppliers work smarter.
Because the goal isn’t simply to award a contract, it’s to create a partnership capable of delivering measurable business value long after the tender is over.
Stuart Tandy has worked in the business travel, accommodation, meetings and events sector for over 25 years, and during all that time, he has been involved in sales and bids. He joined Inntel in May 2025. Stuart’s role focuses on implementing robust bid management processes, creating and enhancing bid library content, and working collaboratively with key people to compose compelling and commercially attractive bids to win and retain clients.