JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
www.buyingbusinesstravel.com
Welcome FOR COMPANY TRAVEL & MEETINGS BUYERS, & ARRANGERS ISSUE 54 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
thinking 2012
Industry predictions for Forward
Editor's comment
Paul Revel Editor, Buying Business Travel Tech top 20
Travel IT’s list of biggest hitters
CoverBBTJAN FEB 12
fin.indd 1 Airline survey
Are you sitting comfortably?
Opportunity knocks Training to boost your business and career
16/12/2011 16:52 Back to the future ISSUE 54
Editor Paul Revel Executive Editor Bob Papworth Managing Editor Mike Toynbee Art Director Annie Harris Designer Javi Otero Sub Editor Richard Rees Contributors Caroline Allen, Simone Buckley, Alex Blyth, Catherine Chetwynd, Felicity Cousins, David Churchill, Amon Cohen, Martin Cowen, Colin Ellson, Mark Frary, Jonathan Hart, Margie Logarta, William Maxwell, Gareth Morgan, Bob Papworth, Dave Richardson, Fay Sharpe, Ian Skuse, Sara Turner Publisher Chris Mihalop Production Manager Jamie Halling Editorial tel number +44 (0)20 7821 2715 Editorial fax number +44 (0)20 7821 2701 Email address
editor@buyingbusinesstravel.com Advertising tel +44 (0)20 7821 2733 Advertising fax +44 (0)20 7821 2701 Email address
sales@buyingbusinesstravel.com Front cover image: ISTOCK
Buying Business Travel is published by Panacea Publishing International Ltd, 5th Floor, Warwick House 25-27 Buckingham Palace Road London SW1S 0PP United Kingdom Tel +44 (0)20 7821 2700 Fax +44 (0)20 7821 2701 Managing Director Julian Gregory Editorial Director Tom Otley on behalf of Business Travel Media Holdings Ltd Chairman Ian Dockreay Managing Director Julian Gregory
© 2012 Business Travel Media Holdings Ltd and Panacea Publishing International Ltd. The magazine is entirely independent of all commercial interests within the travel industry. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be accepted for publication. The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publishers who cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. ISSN 2041-4242
www.buyingbusinesstravel.com
WHEN I WAS A KID, growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was already talk of business travel eventually being replaced by some kind of new-fangled videophone set-up. My fear was I’d never go on exciting trips like my dad and his colleagues – it would all be done electronically. I was worried the grown- up me would be stuck in a dreary office, meeting people via some futuristic piece of tech – a device combining those clattering telex machines and the flickering holograms in Star Wars. I’d never fly on Concorde! Well, I was right about
for suppliers and agencies, but a double-whammy for buyers. An over-riding theme in this issue is squeezing every last drop of value out of travel and meetings spend – and that includes virtual meetings. On reflection, George Lucas and I
George
Lucas and I weren't too wide of the mark...
Concorde (though wrong about the reasons) and quite prescient about the Star Wars/telex combo – internet-linked technology has lived up surprisingly well to George Lucas’s 70s fantasies. But I was obviously wrong about the demise of business travel. Throughout this issue you’ll find
evidence to the contrary: despite much doom-mongering by politicians and economists, there are forecasts of moderate rises in business travel demand this year – hand-in-hand with price rises. But in many instances those price increases have as much to do with fuel and tax hikes as with booming businesses. So fare rises and more travel may be degrees of good(ish) news
Technology IT top 20 LEADERS OF THE PACK
ONE OF THE MOST interesting changes Buying Business Travel noticed last year when compiling its leading 50 travel management companies (TMCs) was the increasing importance of IT. For the first time, many TMCs listed their IT directors among their key personnel. Recognising the ever- growing importance of technology in business travel in the UK, BBT decided to compile a list of the 20 people who have had the most influence in business travel technology over the past year. To create this list we gathered together a panel of experts from across the industry, as follows (in alphabetical order):
■ Richard Boardman Chief executive of Reed & Mackay and chair of the technology working party at the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) ■ Simone Buckley Chief executive of the Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM) ■ Mark Frary Technology expert and regular Buying Business T
ravel
writer (chair) ■ Jamie Hindhaugh Head of production L2012 and head of sourcing – logistics for the BBC ■ Kevin May Editor of travel technology publication Tnooz ■ Simon McLean Managing director of Click Travel ■ Andrew Solum Consultant and travel buyer for Travel Industry Associates ■ Duncan Spokes Head of the business travel category at buying consortium Pro5 and the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation ■ Paul Tilstone Managing director of GBTA Europe
58
Each was asked to name up to five people with influence in relation to business travel technology, although panellists were unable to name their own staff or suppliers. Many names appeared more than once and this is the basis for the ranking below. The basis for inclusion was very broad and included those people whose work in technology has affected the business traveller in a positive way, as well as heads of technology and chief executives working for business travel companies.
1
STEVE JOBS (DECEASED) CEO, APPLE
As this feature looks at who has had the greatest influence in business travel technology over the past year, we make no excuses for including the late co-founder of Apple, who died from pancreatic cancer in early October. Steve Jobs was named more times by our panellists than anyone else, largely for his work in delivering iPhones and iPads into the hands of the world’s business travellers. Simon Mclean of Click Travel said: “The iPhone has changed people’s lives and its momentum in the business world is increasing all the time. The way people interact with each other and the services they use have been changed by the iPhone forever, and that will inevitably impact the way people organise their travel – both on a personal level and in business travel.” Consultant Andrew Solum listed Jobs “for his technology skills, bringing apps to the forefront of technology for the iPad and iPhone, and opening up yet further opportunities for the travel segment.” Steve Jobs was born in 1955 and adopted at birth. He started to work for videogame manufacturer Atari in his teens. Apple was founded by Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne (who later sold his share to the two Steves for $800) in Jobs’ adopted parents’ garage in Los Altos, California. Over the years since then, Apple has created a number of game-changing devices, leading up to the recent launch of the latest version of the iPhone, the 4S. In its most recent financial quarter, the company sold more than 17 million iPhones, 11m iPads, 6m iPods and 4m Mac computers.
STEVE SINGH CEO, CONCUR
The name of Concur and its CEO Steve Singh came up again and again among our panellists.
What drew their admiration was the company’s ability to focus on detail in order to develop the best solution for end-to-end travel and expense (T&E) processing.
Concur was founded in 1993 by Steve’s brother Rajeev and Mike Hilton, now executive vice-president of marketing for the company, with a focus on saving companies’ money through process automation in the area of expense management.
In 1996 the company drafted in Steve, who had been a general manager at IT company Symantec, to be its CEO.
Since then, the company has grown to the point where it handles a claimed 10 per cent of the world’s T&E spend, which it puts at $35 billion.
Along the way it has changed shape under Steve Singh’s direction, acquiring Outtask and its Cliqbook online booking technology in 2006 and Tripit, the itinerary management technology company, in 2011.
IT top 20 Technology
Technology is one of the most powerful forces driving the changes we’re seeing in business travel. So who are the most influential people in this field? Mark Frary reports
weren’t too wide of the mark – virtual conferencing is becoming ever more prevalent and sophisticated. It continues to advance in terms of product and distribution – see Sabre’s deal with Polycom to launch a global reservation system for booking virtual facilities. With fuel prices and travel taxes on the march,
every boss with an eye on the bottom line is going to be watching developments closely for savings opportunities. And the financial incentive to go virtual is increasing as carbon trading develops. But as ever, we want to know what
your experience is, so I’ll be updating you soon about a (brief but thorough) reader survey to ensure BBT, as the leading UK publication for corporate travel buyers, is providing you with precisely the content you need – and some rather nice prizes to tempt you to take part. In the meantime, whatever’s on your mind, drop me a line at
prevel@panaceapublishing.com or via the BBT readers’ group on
linkedin.com Here’s to a successful and prosperous 2012 – keep in touch.
2 LARRY PAGE
CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, GOOGLE
Google’s co-founder was another name that appeared numerously in our panel’s inclusions. Over the years, Google has been astonishingly successful, particularly at generating revenue from ads alongside its search results, but it is its other activities that have drawn admiration from our panellists.
They cited Google Maps and Earth, which have changed the landscape of hotel booking, as well as its
Google Translate API, enabling travel companies to serve up international versions of their websites with little in the way of investment.
Click Travel’s Simon Mclean said:
“Google’s biggest impact on our industry has been the services they have delivered. Take Google Maps – the ubiquitous standard for delivering mapping, directions and geolocation services that is now embedded into many online business travel services.” Google has only just got started in this area, and many of our panel pointed to Google’s acquisition of ITA and its fare search technology. Whether it will disrupt the business travel sector in the same way that it has other industries remains to be seen. Page co-founded Google at Stanford
3
3
Special report
Airline Survey 2012 Please take your seats…
Tom Otley explains how the price of oil can affect the size of your seat, as he introduces this extract from the market-leading annual airline survey by our sister publication Business T
raveller, in conjunction with
Seatplans.com
CONSOLIDATION IS THE BIG STORY among international airlines, but in terms of the seats you’ll find on board, any benefits may be a long time coming. For those airlines detailed here, as well as more than 100 on our sister website
Seatplans.com, new seating and new aircraft continue to be introduced, but the impetus for those changes is as much to do with the high price of oil as it is any synergies yet achieved as a result of mergers and acquisitions. Older aircraft simply cannot be flown
economically with oil at more than US$100 a barrel and, as a result, both Airbus and Boeing have record orders from existing legacy carriers, new international competitors from the Gulf and short- and long-haul low-cost carriers. When these new aircraft appear, they do so with the latest low-weight seating to increase
HOW WE WORK IT OUT 01 BUSINESS ?
airline to allow you to compare products in each class across the fleet. We have focused mainly on medium- and long-haul aircraft but some short-haul fleets have been included as well.
01 90
across the aircraft. At first you might think this is a little too much detail, but you may change your mind once you are halfway into a long-haul flight and realise that on a different aircraft, or with a different airline, you could have had a seat with direct aisle access – and a view out of the window.
02
measured from a fixed point on one seat to the same point on the one in front. The exact point differs from airline to airline, but note that new seats often have thinner cushions so offer more room, despite the seat pitch measurement remaining
03
SEAT PITCH This is the distance between seats,
SEAT CONFIGURATION This is the way seats are arranged
PLANE TYPE AND CLASS We have arranged the survey by
73” 180°
unaltered. Pitch is an indication of how much legroom you will get.
you might think. Airlines obtain the seat width either by measuring the cushion, the distance between the armrests or, in some examples, from the outside of one armrest to the outside of the other (using the justification that the seat cushion is this wide). See facing page for details.
04
only, here the pitch becomes redundant – the length of your bed is what matters.
of different ways – from horizontal, 90-degrees upright or the take-off position. See facing page for more details.
05 06
07
SEAT TYPE This mainly depends on how far
a seat reclines. We have identified five
RECLINE This can be measured in a number
SEAT LENGTH A measurement for fully-flat seats
SEAT WIDTH This is more complicated than
FF ✔ 15” ✔ ✔ EU+US
main types: standard (ST), cradle-style (CS), fixed shell (FS), angled lie-flat (AF) and fully-flat (FF). See facing page for details.
personal screens, it can be a shock to discover one that hasn’t. But the size of the monitors can differ significantly.
08
the ability to stop, start, rewind and pause movies, music, games and TV shows – is becoming a must-have feature across the classes. If it’s not installed, the system will probably run on a continuous loop, so if you miss the start of a film you have to wait for it to come around to the beginning again.
09
type of in-seat power source they offered, be it UK, EU, US, SA (South Africa) or UNI (universal).
10
POWER SOURCE Airlines were asked which
AUDIO-VIDEO ON-DEMAND AVOD in-flight entertainment –
INDIVIDUAL SCREEN AND SIZE With more airlines installing
SEAT WIDTH
SEAT WIDTH IS MEASURED (in inches) between the armrests when the seat is fully upright. The measurement is usually taken as the space between the armrests – so from the inside of one armrest to the inside of the other – or can be the seat cushion width or even the distance between the outside of the armrests. The optimum seat cushion width, based on passenger feedback, has been found to be about 20-21 inches (51-53cm).
SEAT PITCH
SEAT PITCH IS THE DISTANCE between the back of one seat and that of the seat in front, broadly regarded as legroom. For the fully-flat beds in business and first class, seat pitch is not really applicable, as there is usually a lot of space between seats and the only limiting factor is the length of the bed.
91 ENTERTAINMENT
AS IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT (IFE) SYSTEMS become more sophisticated and are upgraded from simple multichannel offerings to interactive systems that allow for AVOD (audio-video on-demand), economy passengers often benefit from the range of choices available as installation takes place throughout all cabins.
02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 ?
efficiency. These improvements are then also retrofitted on to existing aircraft. Starting from the back of the aircraft,
such changes may not be always welcome. Airlines speak of new seating having thinner seat-cushions and more ergonomic designs, giving economy flyers greater comfort and room; but, in real terms, it has allowed many airlines to introduce extra seats in aircraft such as the B777, so instead of nine-across seating (3-3-3) you now have 10 (3-4-3). Further forward, the biggest change
over the last year has been the continued resurgence of premium economy. First introduced in 2001 by Eva Air and Virgin Atlantic, it quickly caught on with British Airways and, latterly, in various versions with everyone from Air France/KLM and Qantas to Turkish Airlines and Air China, with Cathay
Pacific being the latest to announce it would introduce a premium economy product. So what of business? Well, the good news is
standards have never been so high, both in terms of seating as well as lounges and overall service. Many airlines now have fully-flat seating, and even the much-complained about lie-flat seating of airlines such as Air France/KLM and Lufthansa could be regarded as revolutionary compared to the old cradle-style seats of the 1990s. Finally, there’s first class, at least for a few airlines, which continues to struggle to define itself beyond the improved business class cabin, but which on certain important routes will probably continue to be offered for the foreseeable future, recession or not. n Read editorial reviews of all of these services and classes, plus user reviews, at
businesstraveller.com or
seatplans.com
Airline Survey 2012
Special report
It’s all in the detail, so here is the low-down on how airlines measure their seats… SEATS WITH A SMALL RECLINE
SEATS WITH A LARGE RECLINE
RECLINE IS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT if you are hoping for a decent night’s sleep. In economy class, airlines take the measurement in three ways, but we have opted to avoid giving the first measurement. 1. From horizontal to the furthermost recline 2. From vertical to the furthermost recline (given either in degrees or inches)
3. From the upright, take-off position of the seat to its furthermost recline
ECONOMY, PREMIUM ECONOMY OR SHORT- HAUL BUSINESS/FIRST STANDARD SEAT (ST)
IN BUSINESS AND FIRST CLASS, the options for reclining seats are broadly cradle-style (CS), angled lie-flat (AF) or fully-flat (FF). The measurement of the recline is taken in a number of ways – most controversially when it comes to angled lie-flat, which may sometimes be expressed as 180 degrees, the same as fully-flat beds. We think this can be misleading, so have clearly identified these seat types in the table of measurements for each airline.
CRADLE- STYLE (CS)
ANGLED LIE- FLAT (AF)
In premium economy, some carriers (such as Air France) are introducing fixed shell (FS) seats that recline into a hard plastic surround, not into the space of the person behind you. Others, such as Air New Zealand, have introduced premium economy seats without backs that recline at all, instead opting for a seat base that pivots upwards to give you the feeling of leaning backwards. These are called Space Seats (SPS).
FULLY-FLAT (FF)
Qatar Airways business class IFE system
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
www.buyingbusinesstravel.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124