THE LOWDOWN IN BRIEF


• HILLGATE Travel has launched an enhanced version of its FreeWay online self-booking tool which features five key changes. The developments include external images of properties shown at the ‘availability’ point of search; detailed location maps added for each hotel; enhanced property descriptions; more images of each property; and ‘one-click’ links to each hotel’s website. Jeremy Bull, the TMC’s chairman and ceo, says, “These enhancements represent a significant step forward in our FreeWay product, making the process of locating, comparing and booking hotels a much simpler and quicker experience.”


• AMADEUS has launched a global competition to find, ‘Brighter, Bolder and Better’ solutions for the travel industry. A prize of 20,000 euros is up for grabs to turn the winning idea into reality, while the judging panel includes the likes of Oxford Economics senior economist Andrew Tessler as well as members of Amadeus’ senior management. The competition, which is now live at www.ideasfortravel.amadeus. com, was set-up by Amadeus in order to listen to what the industry believes needs to be improved in terms of the all-round travel experience. The competition closes on May 18th, with the winning idea selected solely by the judging panel and then five ideas which receive the highest number of votes online also receiving 2,000 euros each.”


• NBTA Europe has announced two new events for specialist areas of business travel, the meetings and events sector, and the oil, gas and marine markets. The new events are in addition to what will be the organisation’s second annual conference this September. The new one-day Meetings Lab is pencilled in for late October and is set to take place in Northern Europe, while details for the Oil, Gas & Marine Forum are still to be confirmed. The latter is believed to be the first business travel event by an association to focus on this specific sector. Caroline Strachan, NBTA Europe’s advisory board chair, says, “Our goal for 2011 is to increase the value that NBTA delivers to the global business travel and meetings community.”


• CORRECTION: In the Nov/Dec issue of The Business Travel Magazine we incorrectly said that Cathay Pacific flies four times a week between London and Hong Kong – their actual schedule is, of course, a four-times daily service between the destinations.


for the travel industry ➔


A mixed forecast


GUEST COLUMN


ANDREA NICHOLAS MANAGING DIRECTOR, GREEN TOURISM BUSINESS SCHEME


A GLOOMY opening speech for UK PLC was delivered at Carlson Wagonlit Travel's annual client forum, Exchange, in November. Doug McWilliams, ceo of leading economic forecaster The Centre for Economic & Business Research, kicked off with how the recession has massively speeded up the move of the world’s financial axis to the east, with the western world now fallen below 50 per cent of world GDP. Britain’s ranking as fourth in world economic ranking in 2005 has now slipped to seventh. “We will drop out of the top ten by 2015 and be overtaken by Brazil, India, Canada and Russia and our status on the world’s top table will not be guaranteed. That’s why we’ll be doing things like sharing aircraft carriers with the French,” said McWilliams. He stressed that we are going through the biggest ever economic change since the Industrial Revolution. “It’s happening very quickly and we’re competing with people on a very different cost basis. Bankers won’t lend to each other so you need more money to do the same level of activity. European economies will find it tough.” He predicts five tough years ahead and also believes the euro will break up in the next decade and that there will be austere times for travel in the medium-term as businesses will have to re-scale and cheaper destinations come to the fore. Andrew Lord, director of operations at British Airways, spoke next, sharing his views on


the impact of no new runway at Heathrow: “The industry is schizophrenic over this issue. It will weaken short-haul carriers domestically. Our A380s will enable us to use the same slots but have more capacity but we will need further runway capacity in the next ten years.” A brighter picture came from


Doug Anderson, the Paris-based president and ceo of CWT. “We’ve seen a strong recovery even though we’re not back to 2008 levels yet. Our clients’ top three priorities for 2010 were improving compliance, driving air and ground transportation savings and optimising hotel spend using preferred hotel suppliers.” His speech also highlighted the difficulty TMCs are having in efficiently reporting ancillary airline services for clients and predicted three per cent hotel rate rises on average, with six per cent in the luxury sector and regional differences too. Anderson believes green is working its way back up the agenda, that demand for tele- presence will continue to grow – particularly for brainstorming sessions – and that mobile tech- nology will allow travellers to be better informed. In a Q&A session he said that the legacy of the economic crisis is that travel has found its way to the boardroom, with ROI top of the list, and that those changes will stay with us. “Business is challenging, it is always challenging, and will result in some fascinating opportunities,” Anderson concluded.


SINCE THE first ‘towel agreements’ made their appearance in hotels over 25 years ago there has been scepticism about tourism businesses’ claims to be acting in the interests of the environment and, while the prevalence of greenwash-style statements has diminished, there are still an alarming number of ‘eco-fibs’ in evidence out there. ‘Locally sourced’ food bought at a nearby supermarket, claiming low- energy for using low-voltage light bulbs and providing ‘recycleable’ instead of ‘recycled’ goods are some of the most common examples noted by the Green Tourism Business Scheme, an observation which is based on the inspection of over 1,000 environmental policy documents each year. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of accommodation providers make declarations which are both misleading and too ‘woolly’ to be convincing. Being seen to be green is undoubtedly an increasingly key part of competitive positioning but the majority of environmental policies from accommodation providers contain avoidable inaccuracies. Typically this is based on a misunder- standing but it is not unheard of for a GTBS assessor to come across a property claiming adherence to a policy that is patently not in place. There is a real need generally for greater clarity within environmental statements because many are fluffy to the point of being meaningless. Commonly used phrases such as ‘wherever possible’ and ‘as much as we can’ frequently convey notions of solemn green pledges that are absolutely not met, and such unsubstantiated posturing is unethical in itself. Plus there is common sense to be taken into account. ‘Locally sourced’ implies to the hotel booker or guest that the item is from a nearby producer rather than just a convenient supermarket. If environmental policies are to be credible, hotels must accept that a more rigorous approach is essential. Poorly considered platitudes are far too common.


• Andrea Nicholas is MD of The Green Tourism Business Scheme, the world’s largest independently- verified tourism eco-label.


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