Mini-MBA: Corporate Travel in Australia

Learning outcomes

• Explain the corporate travel value chain in plain English.
• Distinguish managed from unmanaged travel.
• Understand money flows and TMC revenue structures.
• Recognise Australian structural realities.
• Explain why distribution strategy affects control, service and data.
• Place a programme on a maturity ladder.

Learning outcomes

• Identify the distinct motivations of key travel stakeholders and predict their behaviours.
• Apply a structured template to analyse stakeholder incentives and predict their actions.
• Assess the priorities and performance metrics driving corporate buyers' decisions.
• Evaluate the sources of friction and leverage in corporate buyers' predictable behaviours.
• Interpret the operational and economic priorities of Travel Management Companies (TMCs).

Learning outcomes

• Describe the TMC operating model in plain English
• Explain why ‘changes’ drive cost
• Diagnose a TMC using the six operational pillars
• Spot margin compression risks in a pricing proposal

Learning outcomes

• Explain the core procurement terms used in corporate travel sourcing.
• Assess whether a travel programme is ready for more advanced procurement commitments.
• Identify what belongs in an airline RFP pack.
• Compare share-of-wallet options without over-promising supplier commitments.
• Spot risky or incomplete contract clauses.
• Apply simple hotel and ground transport sourcing logic.

Learning outcomes

• Understand the components and value of airline corporate deals
• Identify risks and benefits in airline proposals
• Evaluate the impact of discounts, rebates, and share targets
• Assess the importance of distribution channels and servicing parity
• Analyze data, reporting, and governance in airline contracts

Learning outcomes

• Explain why NDC readiness is more than access to airline content.
• Distinguish content, servicing, data and economics risks in NDC adoption.
• Identify where friction sits across airline, GDS, aggregator, OBT, TMC and corporate programme layers.
• Choose sensible adoption pathways: adopt, pilot, restrict, or avoid.

Learning outcomes

• Translate duty of care into practical travel controls in the Australian WHS context.
• Use escalation levels to decide when travel disruption becomes an incident or crisis.
• Apply a crisis playbook to international unrest and advisory changes.
• Explain disruption cost, ERM alignment, insurance, assistance and compliance in executive language.

Learning outcomes

• Explain why business travel usually sits in Scope 3 and why that matters for governance.
• Recognise the difference between estimate, measure, manage, reduce and optimise maturity.
• Describe SAF economics, offsets, in-sector reduction and credible claims language.
• Apply cost, carbon and traveller/productivity trade-offs to supplier and policy decisions.

Learning outcomes

• Design supplier scorecards with a limited number of high-signal metrics.
• Balance commercial, operational and traveller experience measures.
• Use trends, weighting and governance consequences rather than isolated snapshots.
• Translate travel analytics into actions, decisions and supplier accountability.

Learning outcomes

• Apply the Structural Shift Horizon framework to 2026-2035 decisions.
• Explain the evolution of AI servicing from assist to automate, orchestrate and optimise.
• Assess airline distribution restructuring, sustainability constraints and volatility scenarios.
• Synthesize the full Mini-MBA into practical 90-day actions.