THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE I 39 The Review ➔ Mobile the hot topic at BTS NEWS BTS
THE Business Travel Show took place at London's Earls
Court in February, sparking plenty of debate between buyers and suppliers in the various seminars and workshops. The jury was out in the session
entitled 'Will mobile enhance or kill the relationship between the TMC and client?', and one speaker, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne of T2impact, summed up the mood when he said: “As an industry we’ve been poor at servicing the mobile users, which is why travellers have led the way.” A straw poll of the audience highlighted that most people had 10 to 15 apps on their smart- phones. Many of their employers would be restrictive on app downloads, and particularly on sharing itineraries, and would control them via company policy. The speakers did agree that very
few apps were of use and Michael O‘Connell, director of business development, Sabre Mobile and Traveler Services, shared the figure that the average use of an app is two weeks, after which it drops off. He also highlighted the challenge ahead, asking, “How do you know your customer better than Google does or any other non-travel expert?” In the 'Global Meetings' session
THE LOWDOWN IN BRIEF
Paul Wakelin, global deployment manager of IBM Integrated Supply Chain, gave many good reasons for employing online technology to help manage meetings of fewer than 150 attendees. “Starcite drives efficiency and almost automates the process,” he said. Being able to download an availability and pricing report on an Excel spreadsheet as a result of an RFP sent to a list of 85,000 vendors gave him choice and visibility. “Starcite collates, compares and contrasts the responses,” he says. Hotels that declined to participate are shown on a separate tab.
COST-CUTTING STILL NUMBER ONE
COST-CUTTING unsurprisingly remains the top priority for most corporates, with air and ground transport savings, improved travel policy compliance, optimised hotel spend and better online adoption the top four targets. The findings were published in
a recent report from Carlson Wagonlit Travel following a survey of 290 travel managers. CWT noted that the four areas of focus can deliver savings for companies – even those with particularly mature travel programmes. Thirty-nine per cent of respon-
dents said enhancing the traveller experience was a priority and 34 per cent said developing key performance indicators was important. Twenty-seven per cent said that tackling safety and security needs was a priority, with
22 per cent saying the same about meetings and events. Only 12 per cent said making their travel programme more environmentally friendly is a priority in 2012. “We are expecting travel spend
to be even more complex in 2012,” says Nick Vournakis, vice president, global, of the CWT solutions group. “Additional fees, surcharges and
credit card booking fees charged by airlines and other suppliers are making it very difficult for buyers to efficiently and accurately compare the full cost of travel between suppliers.” The report highlighted several ongoing trends, including growth in travel spend to the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region and a rise in use of mobile technology solutions and smartphone apps.
Wakelin sees three major
advantages: policy compliance that drives client savings; identifying which hotels IBM is doing business with and being able to negotiate better deals; and improved data collection. The most pertinent comment in
the session, 'Is travel policy dead?', was uttered by speaker Michael Hill, European travel manager of Coca-Cola. “The easiest way to get your travellers to do what you want is to look after them,” he said. The underlying message was don’t complicate matters; if you treat your travellers well then they will comply with your travel policies.
CARD CRUNCH BTS
NEWS
• INNTEL has updated i-Care, its online traveller tracking tool, to cover meetings delegates as well as regular travellers. It has also revealed a new more contemporary look and faster processing times. i-Care integrates with Inntel’s weMeet tool to list all meeting delegates associated with a particular event and locate the meeting on a map. "i-Care was an innovative product that was very well received by our clients when we launched it back in 2008. It has proven invaluable in situations such as the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud and the extreme weather conditions we experienced last year," says Jane Dibble, Inntel’s director of business development. "The new version of i-Care moves it forward significantly, making it faster, slicker and better – with the ability to track delegates as well as travellers being a vital tool that should prove a major benefit to our clients in an emergency.”
• KEY Travel, a specialist TMC for the non-profit sector, has acquired Delta Travel, paving the way for further growth in the academic sector. Delta already has well-established relationships with a number of universities in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester as well as schools and colleges across the country.
ANECDOTAL evidence suggests that buyers are
eschewing company credit cards and returning to the age of the invoice. Now it is no longer a manual process but a single, consolidated electronic invoice sent by the TMC, it is not a return to the dark ages. “Electronic invoices are so efficient and seamless now,” explained Gary Hance, director of technology at ATPI. Offering more evidence of
this trend is Alex Armstrong, newly appointed global director of sales at FCm. “It simplifies everything for the corporate and saves the merchant fees,” he says. “The TMC does the reconciliation as one electronic file.”
• IF THE cardinal sin of a managed travel programme is not having a travel policy in place, the second is not keeping it up to date. American Express Business Travel says less than a third of 100 companies it surveyed had updated their company travel policy in the last 12 months. “The world is changing at such speed that failing to review and revise policy regularly could prove to be an expensive mistake,” says Anthony Drury, head of UK at American Express Global Business Travel. “From cost control to duty of care and corporate social responsi- bility, the need for an up-to-date travel policy is simply too important to be neglected.” The survey also found only 12 per cent of companies had addressed traveller security, 80 per cent had not tackled reimburse- ment of ancillary fees, and none of the travel policies dealt with the use of mobile apps for booking travel.
• THE latest KDS expenses survey revealed that nearly 80 per cent of those surveyed claimed they had never cheated with expense reports. However, those that had 'cheated' weren't necessarily fiddling the system but were instead making up for lost receipts and smaller, unclaimed costs.
38 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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