{"id":183126,"date":"2025-10-30T12:34:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=183126"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:57","slug":"diversity-travel-belooft-verbeteringen-maar-site-nog-steeds-traag-en-onbetrouwbaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2025\/10\/30\/diversity-travel-belooft-verbeteringen-maar-site-nog-steeds-traag-en-onbetrouwbaar\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity Travel promises improvements, but site is still slow and unreliable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diversity Travel, the business travel provider for EUR staff that has caused so many problems, has improved its service in various areas, according to the university. Existing issues are being \u2018taken very seriously\u2019. Among other things, the range of hotels has been expanded. Staff find the site somewhat faster, but still slow and not user-friendly.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSonja Schravesande<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Since January, all staff must book international business trips via Diversity Travel. Previously, staff arranged their own trips through regular booking websites and could then reclaim the costs. That is no longer necessary: through Diversity Travel, costs are settled directly. The new platform is also intended to provide better service to staff on the road and allow the university to monitor whether travel is sustainable. But dozens of staff members complained right after the introduction, and compiled \u2018black books\u2019 about the travel provider last Spring.<\/p>\n

\u2018A disaster\u2019<\/h2>

The website was extremely slow to load, the range of options was limited, and prices were significantly higher than if staff booked the trips themselves. Moreover, Diversity Travel\u2019s customer service was not always easy to reach. Associate professor Nick Koning (ESE) called the platform \u2018a disaster\u2019<\/a>. According to professor Sandra van Thiel, it had not been properly thought through<\/a>. Staff described it as \u2018a waste of time\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a university update, the range of hotels has now been expanded and the service team has been reinforced. Long-term stays for PhD candidates, which turned out to be much more expensive through Diversity, may now be booked outside the system. The average load time of the booking system, the university says, has been reduced from 30 to 6 to 8 seconds.<\/p>\n

Flights disappeared<\/h2>

That is not the experience of Melissa de Roos (assistant professor at ESSB), who was already feeling frustrated<\/a> with Diversity Travel back in April. She tells EM by email that the site has become \u2018somewhat faster\u2019. \u201cBut displaying search results still takes several minutes. I was unable to add flights and then they suddenly disappeared completely from the screen. Flights I can find on Google Flights simply don\u2019t exist on Diversity Travel.\u201d De Roos no longer books flights through the website, but directly via email with a Diversity Travel staff member.<\/p>\n

EM tests (four attempts per type of booking) showed that search results took an average of 90 seconds to appear for flights, 28 seconds for hotels and 21 seconds for train journeys. In three of the twelve search attempts, the site crashed. Searches on well-known hotel booking sites on the same computer took an average of four seconds.<\/p>\n

According to Diversity Travel, EM\u2019s conclusion is inaccurate. The company\u2019s own measurements put load times at 6 to 8 seconds, based on \u2018a significantly larger dataset\u2019 of controlled tests under various conditions, which it claims are more representative. Results do come in slower than on regular booking sites, the company says, because the search engine \u2018aggregates content from multiple providers at once\u2019. Around 69 percent of bookings by EUR staff are made via the form on the website, Diversity Travel says. Presumably, the rest \u2013 like De Roos \u2013 book via email or by phone.<\/p>\n\t

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Seven people to Belgium via Diversity Travel<\/strong><\/p>\n

In November, the EM editorial team will be attending a conference in Belgium. The hotel rooms must be booked through Diversity Travel. So I put the platform to the test. The problems start with the search form: the date selector doesn\u2019t work. After several tries, I give up; it turns out the site doesn\u2019t function properly in Firefox. It does work in Edge. Booking for seven people isn\u2019t possible: above four people, only even numbers are allowed. Eventually, I work around it by making two separate bookings. Unfortunately, this causes the site to show the wrong number of personal data forms, so I can\u2019t enter details for all colleagues. After several restarts of the entire booking process, I finally manage to get eight<\/em> personal data forms. I enter the full names, birth dates, genders, phone numbers, email addresses and titles for seven colleagues (and myself twice to reach eight) and try to confirm the booking. But in the meantime, the prices have changed, the system reports. I have to start over from scratch, including entering all personal details. After this happens five times, I give up and contact customer service via the site\u2019s chat box.<\/p>\n

The chat agent doesn\u2019t seem to understand my question. So I call Diversity Travel by phone. A friendly English-speaking man refers me to another phone service that should be able to handle the booking. That service, however, refers me to an email address to which I\u2019m supposed to send all the booking details. Again, I have to retype all the personal data. In the end, I manage to reserve the rooms this way.<\/p>\n

I decide to book the train tickets via email as well. After three weeks of back-and-forth emailing, the tickets arrive \u2013 more than four times as expensive as with the direct provider.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

\u2018Advice: avoid the website\u2019<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018By the time the booking was confirmed, the price had increased by more than 300 euros\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Nick Koning hasn\u2019t used the \u2018improved\u2019 tool himself, as his faculty has advised against using the website and to book everything through Diversity Travel\u2019s customer email service instead. But even that is not a smooth ride. \u201cInstead of a single click, you\u2019re now emailing back and forth for three days just to confirm a booking\u201d, he writes. \u201cI had already found a flight myself, but by the time the booking was confirmed, the price had increased by more than 300 euros.\u201d Koning also knows of cases where staff received a booking confirmation, but the hotel had no reservation upon arrival \u2013 or the payment had not been completed. What frustrates him most is that EUR is not offering \u2018a serious temporary solution\u2019 while the problems with Diversity Travel persist.<\/p>\n

\u2018Genuinely regrettable\u2019<\/h2>

In its update, the university acknowledges the issues and says they are being taken very seriously. \u201cWe understand that the introduction of the platform has been frustrating for many. We genuinely regret that\u201d, the statement reads. Still, the use of the travel provider remains mandatory, despite requests from staff to be allowed to use alternatives. This is because Diversity Travel won the European tender. The tender was necessary as the total cost of business travel exceeded a certain threshold. In addition, the university has a duty of care, meaning it must know where its staff are staying abroad in order to reach them in case of emergencies. For this, a 24-hour emergency service must be provided \u2013 something the university cannot arrange itself but Diversity Travel can.<\/p>\n\n\t

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