CWT, the business-to-business-for-employees (B2B4E) travel management platform, has launched a new bilingual service center that will offer companies round-the-clock travel assistance in English and Mandarin. This is in response to a growing demand from Chinese multinationals that require a convenient and consistent corporate travel experience for their employees based outside of China.
The service center, located in Singapore, consists of a team of travel counselors who are fluent in both languages and have received special training in Chinese culture and traveler preferences. Companies that sign up for this service will have access to 24/7 assistance for their employees’ travel arrangements including flight, ground transport and hotel bookings, as well as on-trip support in the event of trip disruptions such as flight delays and cancelations.
“We have seen a swift resumption in travel by our Chinese clients’ overseas employees, as countries around the world have relaxed restrictions,” said Albert Zhong, General Manager, China, CWT. “In the case of certain companies, these travelers are already traveling as much—or even more—than they were pre-pandemic. Through our new bilingual service hub in Singapore, we can provide our Chinese customers and their employees around the world with a more consistent experience, whenever they need support, and in their preferred language.”
One of China’s biggest technology companies became the first customer to begin using this service in May, and the feedback from their travelers has been overwhelmingly positive. CWT also has several other large Chinese multinational clients that have expressed interest and are expected to go live later this year.
CWT first entered China in 1996, with China Air Service (CAS) as its appointed partner. In 2003, CWT and CAS established a joint venture, CWT China, which now has offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Meishan, Shanghai and Tianjin. The business has grown from supporting the Chinese operations of CWT’s international clients to increasingly working with more homegrown Chinese companies as the country’s corporate travel market has matured. In 2021, three in every five new customers signed by CWT China were local companies.
CWT also established its Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore in 1996. Singapore was deemed to be the ideal location for this new bilingual service center, given the easy access to a wide pool of travel counselors who speak both English and Mandarin, as well as the existing technology and extensive experience that CWT’s teams in Singapore have in operating similar service hubs.
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