THE LOWDOWN IN BRIEF
• MIDLANDS-based TMC Travel Management Group (TMG) has acquired the corporate travel division of Complete World Travel after it went into administration in March. TMG, based in Leamington Spa, hopes to use the addition to further develop the UK corporate travel side of its global business, made up of five divisions: events, corporate, leisure, sport and venues.
• LEISURE Pass Group is giving TMCs and travel buyers the opportunity to grab a slice of the lucrative attraction tickets market by offering the popular London Sightseeing Pass to clients. The smart card gives access to over 55 London attractions including Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Westminster Abbey and The Tower of London. Significant discounts are on offer when committing to certain numbers. The pass is available in one, two, three and six-day options.
• CHAMBERS Travel Management has won three new accounts worth more than a combined total of £11million. Remarkably, all three were signed on the same day. The company begins work with the new partners, including Engine Group and Herbert Smith over the next few months. On the same day as the new business was signed, Chambers was also named Best Independent Travel Management Company at the Qatar Airways BAFTA awards.
• TRAVEL organisers can now take advantage of a new online tool to find out who flies where. The website,
Travref.com, uses Google Maps to plot UK and Irish departure points and destinations served by scheduled airlines and direct sea and international rail links. Also displayed are direct links to the websites of national embassies, airport websites, the FCO and NHS for relevant visa, logistics, security and health information. The website's creator, Richard Moore, says, ”It’s a one- stop resource showing all direct travel options available to travellers heading for a particular destination – even the low-cost carriers which don’t appear in GDS systems.”
• IN THE last issue of The Business Travel Magazine, a story on these pages entitled ‘BSI’s new outlook’ incorrectly stated that Capita Business Travel had acquired BSI – in fact, it is the Capita Group that has acquired BSI. In addition, we attributed a comment to James Parkhurst when it is in fact James Parkhouse.
➔ Generation game
GUEST COLUMN
PAUL ROBIN EVENT DIRECTOR BUSINESS TRAVEL MARKET
AS I write I am sitting in the British Airways lounge at Heathrow's T5 contemplating the fate of those business travellers around me, beavering away on their laptops and iPads pre-flight. Will they be fit for purpose and perform at optimum levels when they arrive for meetings and 'have to hit the ground running'? So how can organisations help
A ROBUST message to the Twitter and Facebook generation has come from Ed Fuller, president and MD of International Lodging at Marriott. He has condensed his 40 years of business acumen into a book, You can’t lead with your feet on the desk, published in April. Fuller stresses the importance of
face to face meetings and social skills. “Personal relationships are the real currency of every culture and the bedrock of success,” he says. The three characteristics to build a relationship, he believes, are mutual respect, to earn trust by delivering in a crisis, and to lead from the front and be willing to give yourself the tough jobs. “Relationships are an investment.
You can get work done because you already know that person.” The veteran hotelier believes that
there is a place for social media and email communication, but only on small amounts of business. “When you’re talking about major contracts you have to get on the plane and see the people,” he says. “Differentiating between your product is key. Adding the personal touch and service level does that.” Fuller predicts a swing back to high-touch and away from faceless communication. “People will start to say, ‘We need to talk.’ In the commercial world today you have to get out on the street and spend time with your customers.“
BA AND CWT AMONG GREEN WINNERS
their key individuals achieve the success they rightly demand? To look for an answer to this I would suggest that companies should look at the sporting world where the margin between success and failure can be just as tight as those in the business world. International sporting teams and
clubs have looked at the science behind performance in minute detail, from monitoring key individual’s sleep patterns and nutritional needs, to stress levels and general health. From the data produced, individual plans for optimising performance and recovery can be developed. In the case of an international rugby team travelling long-haul between important matches, for example, it may be discovered that some players need three days recovery before their first training session and others would be better getting straight back into it. In the business world, of course,
time is money and no company would afford an executive that sort of time off prior to a big meeting. But the smart companies are recognising that some work in this area might, at the very least, help define those individuals who are best suited to the task. We all think we know what's best
WINNERS of the third annual ICARUS Sustainability Awards were announced during ITM's annual conference in April. They are CWT in the intermediary sector and British Airways in the transport sector. “We are delighted to award these two companies at a time when sustainability has not necessarily been a priority,” said ITM chairman Jamie Hindhaugh. CWT was singled out for its effort to develop a programme of
demand management tools which give travellers all the ‘door to door’ options for multi-modal routes. The enhanced commitment to
the development of alternative fuels and fully supporting the ‘on destination’ programme of targets
to reduce CO2, lower noise levels and recycle waste was the main factor in awarding BA the transport prize. “Its programme of supply chain procurement was particularly of note,” said the citation.
for ourselves but usually it takes someone else pointing out a different approach backed up by hard facts for us to do anything markedly different. The science is now available for companies to help their hard working, stressed-out travellers perform at the optimum level, and the smart companies realise it is in all their interests.
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