News From Nashville

ore than 1,100 feds with a stake in federal travel gathered in Nashville in June for four days of educational workshops, networking and information sharing, speeches and policy debates. Government workers in travel, finance, transportation, relocation, technology, meeting planning and administration came from agencies large and small. Defense, no surprise, sent the biggest delegation (310), followed by Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services. But even smaller agencies-such as the Federal Reserve Board and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-sent folks to improve the way federal travel and relocation are done. Here's a roundup of some of the hot topics at the gathering.

PLACES TO SLEEP

The General Services Administration is working on a new regulation that would "strongly encourage" government workers to stay in hotels that are part of the Federal Premier Lodging Program when on official travel.

The program is designed to solve the problems travelers have had finding safe, convenient lodging at or below per diem. Hotels promise to make a certain number of rooms available at a fixed rate. The government hopes to leverage some of its buying power-more than $1.7 billion a year for lodging-by contracting for rooms. GSA aims to have contracts in the 75 top federal travel destinations by the end of this year.

Becky Rhodes, deputy associate administrator of GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, compared the lodging program to the city pair air travel program, which started with less than 10 contracts and now numbers more than 5,000.

If the regulation is approved, hotels and motels participating in the lodging program would come up first on a list when a traveler or travel arranger seeks to make reservations, says Marty Wagner, GSA associate administrator. Now, travelers often have to submit for actual expenses above per diem, stay at properties far away from the work site, or reach into their own pockets to get a place to stay. It may seem prices are increasing with the lodging program, says Wagner, but "we are now getting real and better prices."

The program got mixed reviews from conference participants. Some critics say the same results could have been achieved simply by raising lodging rates. But the fact that the program improves access to properties that are "safe, clean, within per diem and fire-safety compliant," wins it high marks from some, including Jim Lucas, a Federal Emergency Management Agency policy adviser who is on the Interagency Travel Management Committee. Lucas is relieved that with the lodging program, his travelers won't have to jump through hoops to get actual expenses approved. And the program will save federal agencies some state and local tax dollars.

Speaking at the conference, OMB's Jack Kelly noted the challenges the federal government faces in designing a lodging program. Unlike any private corporation, he said, "We have to house a very diverse population anywhere in the country any time of the year." The test of the program, said Kelly, will be " 'Is it a good deal for the taxpayer?' And 'Is this helping federal travelers and agencies by providing them safe, close, quality hotels?'"

For more on the Federal Premier Lodging Program, see www.gsa.gov/fplp. In June, GSA added five southeastern cities and raised their per diem rates: Huntsville, Ala.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; Biloxi, Miss.; and Charleston, S.C.

TRAVEL PLANNING ON AUTOPILOT

Imagine you could go out on the Web-from anywhere-to a single site and make all your travel arrangements. Imagine the site would remember what cities you usually go to, what hotels you like to stay in, what size car you prefer and the special airline meals you order. Imagine the reservations you put in would be automatically forwarded for supervisor approval, and the information on your trip would stay in the system to ease the reimbursement process when you return.

At the National Travel Conference in June, GSA's Marty Wagner launched the agency's eTravel Initiative: a governmentwide, Web-based, end-to-end travel management system.

The system aims to automate and consolidate travel processes from planning through reimbursement and reconciliation. Boosters say it will save money and be paperless and simpler.

This may sound familiar to federal travel-watchers: They have heard similar claims from the Defense Travel System since the mid-1990s, but that system is not yet off the ground. E-travel boosters say GSA's project will be successful in part because of lessons learned from DTS, which now is scheduled for worldwide deployment by 2006. The team of agencies working with GSA on the project includes Transportation, Treasury, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency and others.

GSA plans to have an online booking process available governmentwide in December and the entire system by the end of 2003.

Some companies already have developed products to meet the government's e-travel needs. In Nashville, Cendant and Gelco launched Travelport, an end-to-end, Web-based travel procurement and expense management tool that they developed for the federal government. The automated system lets travelers use a single portal to plan, authorize, book, fulfill and submit vouchers for reimbursement. The system ensures compliance with city pair contracts, fire safety rules and other federal mandates. A travel agency call center provides customer support with the system. Travelport "takes federal agencies out of having to be their own integrators of all the travel systems components," says Jon Klem, president of Gelco Expense Management. Zegato also entered this arena, with Zegato Travel Service, which is up and running at several federal workplaces.

Conference participants were wary about how a unified system would work at their agencies. Project leader Tim Burke warned those working on travel improvements against committing to other processes or systems in the next year or so. GSA ultimately plans to require agencies to use its system. A common approach, he said, will reduce costs, redundancy and inefficiency. For more information on GSA's initiative, contact etravel@gsa.gov.