FCM Travel, Blockskye and Kayak for Business announced what the companies call a first-of-its-kind global partnership designed to eliminate the trade-offs enterprise buyers have long faced between user experience, data-and-payment friction, and global service reach.

The companies, said the announcement, will soon launch an integrated, end-to-end solution that brings together seamless booking capabilities and payment innovation into a single, globally scalable product for the world’s largest and high-performing organizations.

This collaboration, said the announcement, lays the foundation for an entirely new approach to enterprise travel. Today, it said, many programs operate across fragmented systems that limit visibility and create inefficiencies for both travelers and organizations. By strategically leveraging each company’s complementary strengths, said the announcement, this partnership will address these challenges by delivering a more unified and seamless solution that fundamentally reimagines enterprise travel operations.

Melissa Elf, global managing director, FCM, said, “By bringing together a world-class consumer-grade user experience, cutting-edge data-and-payment technology and global service scalability, we are addressing a critical gap in the enterprise market and ensuring organizations can expand their travel programs without compromise.”

Michael Share, co-CEO of Blockskye, said, “The last several years in the industry have seen buyer’s options narrow through roll-ups and rebranded legacy systems, so combining Kayak for Business’s platform, Blockskye’s trusted data-and-payment infrastructure and FCM’s service footprint across 95 countries is the first real structural reset the category has had.”

The combined offering, according to the announcement, will include:

• Blockskye’s modern infrastructure, enabling ultimate payment flexibility, true expense automation and Level 4 data to deliver control and savings with trust and transparency.

• Kayak for Business’ consumer-grade booking experience, along with its broad access to content, making business trips as easy to book as personal travel.
• FCM’s extensive global service and trusted travel management expertise, supporting large-scale, multinational programs in more than 95 countries, including some of the more complex markets across the world.

Eva Fouquet, senior vice president of Kayak for Business, said, “By pairing our best-in-class booking experience with Blockskye’s data and payments expertise and FCM’s global reach, we are coming together to simplify enterprise global travel programs.”

Flight Centre Travel Group, the parent company of FCM, has made an investment in Blockskye, “underscoring the companies’ shared commitment to driving direct payment and expense innovation across the industry,” according to the announcement.