CONFERENCE SESSION: KEYNOTE SPEAKER Our keynote speaker enthralled the audience for 60 minutes with his amazing daredevil achievements, made all the more remarkable as Miles Hilton-Barber is blind. This fifty-something adventurer and motivational speaker has flown across 21 countries piloting a microlite from London to Sydney, abseiled down Table Mountain, embarked on an expedition to the South Pole, climbed Kilimanjaro, gone white-water rafting down the Zambesi, sped round the Grand Prix circuit at 120mph in Malaysia, flown a supersonic aircraft and run across the Sahara. His ethos is that your quality of life is dependent on what you can control, not what you can’t control, and to start with your goals rather than your circumstances. “There are no limits in our lives other than
those we accept ourselves. I didn’t start with what I couldn’t do as a blind man but what I wanted to do,” he explained. He says that he is more successful and more fulfilled now than he was when he was sighted. “Don’t be blind to your dreams; sight without vision is equal to blindness.” His tips for a more rewarding lifestyle are to
start with your dreams, make a decision to live before you die, plan, persevere and regularly try something you've not done before.
WORKSHOP: FRESH AIR In this workshop, Keith Mullineux, GE's travel manager for EMEA, gave the audience a stark critique of why it’s difficult to integrate low-cost carriers into travel programmes. “Ryanair is anti-agent, anti-
“An excellent opportunity to catch up on the latest inno- vations from suppliers and to speak with peers and share our challenges”
GDS and doesn’t accept Amex; Norwegian only distributes their content with Amadeus; easyJet is invisible to Turbo Sabre; Aer Lingus distributes its lowest fares exclusively through their website and its higher yeald fares in the GDS; while FlyBe only offers partial GDS content, unbundled and codeshares with Air France so it’s not the easiest of carriers to deal with.” Mullineux did, however, offer advice on one low-cost carrier that is buyer friendly: “Air Berlin gets the whole thing right, with great fares, great deals, all in Sabre, and that’s the best practice; it’s full GDS content.”
CONFERENCE SESSION: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Our wrap-up session of the conference aimed to collect key takeaways for both buyers and suppliers from the two days of sessions. Asked whether buyers can buy smarter, Virgin
Gavin Harvey, senior buyer, purchasing, Sodexo
Atlantic’s Paul Wait high- lighted the frustration of both buyers and suppliers only being able to negotiate on one part of the airfare and not the APD tax and fuel portion. PwC's Will Hasler agreed:
“We used to negotiate on 100 per cent of the fare and now we don’t.“ From the audience,
Deloitte’s Yvette Rudge voiced the frustration of many when she said: “How much more room is there [to cost cut]? You can’t keep on tasking the same area of spend for savings.” PwC's answer is to reduce the number of travellers in the group, while ITM chairman Jamie Hindhaugh believes that video- conferencing has its place but that few people know how to use it effectively. Another theme from the conference focussed
on SMEs getting a raw deal from TMCs. Hindhaugh – who is also head of production, BBC 2012 and head of sourcing, BBC Logistics – responded: “Small is not always beautiful. The TMC tells you how it works and an SME has to fit into it.” But he highlighted the flip side of that argument: “I’m limited as I can only take my spend to certain TMCs whereas SMEs have more flexibility.”
18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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