GTMC UPDATE IN BRIEF


• TRAVELDOO, the provider of travel and expense management platforms, has announced a partnership with Advantage Business Travel which will allow its members to offer an expense management solution to their corporate clients through a referral agreement with Traveldoo.


• GRAY Dawes Travel & Expense Management has joined the Advantage Travel Partnership. The company has more than trebled its profi ts in the past two years and believes joining Advantage will allow it to build on this further by sharing the collective knowledge and experience of the other members, as well as giving it access to a wider range of products and competitive air fares and hotel rates.


• AVOCET Travel Management has joined Tzell UK, part of Travel Leaders UK. The Surrey-based company has an aggressive growth strategy and an annual turnover of £3million. It has clients in the fi nancial sector, as well as manufacturing and logistics.


• FCm Travel Solutions is expanding its presence in Africa having signed a new partnership agreement with Activ Travel in Morocco. Headquartered in Casablanca, Activ Travel offers comprehensive business travel and expense manage- ment services and specialises in MICE travel and logistics.


• IN A session on Number Crunching at The Business Travel Conference, speakers Tony Pilcher (of Pilcher Associates) and Susan Hopley (The Data Exchange) tackled the subject of data. They concluded that much education is needed on how best to obtain and manage data. "Companies are only using data for reporting purposes rather than for strategic management and development of their end-to-end business travel programme," said Pilcher.


• INNTEL has enjoyed a record 12-month period. Client revenues rose by 32 per cent overall, with meetings and events business up 41 per cent and bookings by 49.9 per cent. Client turnover rose by 22 per cent year-on-year, with meetings and events turnover also up by 32 per cent. The agency has recently won signifi cant new business from AXA UK and Metro Bank.


GLOBAL distribution system Travelport has acquired Hotelzon as part of an ‘ongoing strategy to redefine and strengthen its hotel offering’ for corporates and travel management companies. The purchase supports Travelport’s ambitions to make booking inde- pendent hotels easier for business travellers, a market that has traditionally been the domain of specialist hotel booking agencies. The acquisition adds 30,000 independent hotel properties and smaller European hotel chains to its Travel Commerce Platform. According to Euromonitor, global


hotel bookings are projected to grow six per cent per annum,


from $480billion in 2013 to $600bn in 2017, yet the hotel industry remains highly fragmented. The top ten global hotel groups


represent less than 20 per cent of room revenue in every region worldwide except North America, Australasia and the Middle East. “With Hotelzon, we will now be


able to offer special corporate negotiated rates and other offerings from independent hotels to corporations and their travelllers, as well as ensuring a broader capability in the hotel distribution space for our TMC partners,” says Gordon Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Travelport.


CORPORATE CONUNDRUMS


THE furore over Brunei’s impending change to Sharia law may have resulted in celebrities boycotting the Dorchester Collection due to the group’s ownership by the Sultan of Brunei, but corporate buyers remained steadfastly indifferent to the issue. “Who owns it is not an issue


for me,” sums up Roger Peters of CapGemini. The GBTA adds: “A professional buyer should either undertake due diligence on all major suppliers or look to their agency of choice to ensure that recommended properties fall in line with the company’s ethical and financial policies,” says Paul Tilstone, Senior Vice President of Global Development at the association.


“This should be a fully functioning


part of a holistic approach to supply chain management.” Christopher Cowdray, CEO of


Dorchester Collection, highlighted the broader perspective: “Most of us are not aware of the investors behind the brands that have become an integral part of our everyday life, from the petrol we put in our cars, to the clothes we wear, to the way we use social media, and to the hotels we frequent. European companies across the board are funded by foreign investment, including Sovereign Wealth Funds.” Hotel groups such as Four Seasons


and Fairmont, and the Corinthia London would fall into this category.





Travelport buys in new hotel content


future of our industry and how we can attract young talent. Certainly we need to look to those


O


fresh-faced graduates of school and university - digital natives who will be guided by technology develop- ments that we can’t begin to imagine. But how do we recruit these bright, technology-focused minds? The answer, in part, lies with a new


government-backed apprenticeship scheme dubbed ‘Trailblazers’ which the GTMC has recently championed. Specifically, our People Strategy Group is involved in informing and influencing the development of the scheme and to help ensure the industry is represented as one that Generation Y should consider. It is a platform to engage with young people and invest in talent, and is an important route for employers to demonstrate that they take their people development seriously. The opportunity to capture and nurture young talent is now. Recent research published by People 1st predicts that the travel industry – leisure and business – will need 13,000 more people by 2020, despite technological changes. Just seven per cent of GTMC members' workforce is under the age of 24. As economic recovery continues, the one thing we can be sure of is that there will be more change. The shifting landscape and requirement to grow our businesses means that we must recruit new talent, and quickly. Some 340 employers are expected


to join the government’s Trailblazer scheme and I for one am keen to see the business travel industry represented alongside leisure travel. It is the first time that the business


travel sector has had a voice at the decision-making table about on-the-job training and professional qualifications. We can also have a direct impact on what skills apprentices need to develop to plan for their future in this industry. My advice? Get involved if you don’t want to miss out on recruiting the next generation and plan for the future of both your business and the business travel industry.


Paul Wait Chief Executive, Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC)


ne of the popular topics from our recent conference in Marrakech was about the


THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 39


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