West Express tightens grip on travel

Jul 05, 2001
Virgilijus Savickas

The announcement came when Business Travel International's central and regional managers convened in Vilnius on June 25 to 27.

"Our visit to Vilnius has multiple reasons," said Adrian Woodward, BTI's general manager. "We came to celebrate our two-year partnership with West Express in Lithuania. We believe this rebranding will lead us to better competitiveness in the country as well as on the global market.

"Another reason for us to come here is a plenary meeting of the BTI central office staff and representatives from 12 Eastern European countries. Also we will meet our international clients based in Lithuania," said Woodward.

Large multinational corporations, including IBM, PepsiCo. and Deloitte & Touche, are among BTI's clients. BTI West Express Lithuania's clients include the presidency of the Republic of Lithuania, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Parliament.

"There's a tremendous potential. With the gradual growth of the local economy more and more local companies will benefit from becoming BTI clients," Woodward said.

"Our Lithuanian partner, West Express, has highly skilled and hard working staff that we appreciate very much," said Allison Walsh, a training consultant with BTI. "So we get the best local services for our clients."

"Now we introduce CORRE, a new online system. It increases our service quality enormously. Looking for the best business travel options there's a 95 percent accuracy that you would not miss the chance to get the best deal for the best price at the right time," Woodward said, explaining BTI partnership benefits.

"At the moment we're the biggest air ticket sales company in Lithuania, covering about 28-30 percent of the market," said Julijus Fisas, commercial director of West Express. With a turnover of 65 million litas ($16.25 million) in 2000, some 71 percent of that covered air tickets.

"There's strong competition in the market. So by expanding our local services in business travel we just make ourselves ready for growth in the future," Fisas said.

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