Event report ITM CONFERENCE


FUTURE THINKERS


Gillian Upton reports from the Institute of Travel & Meetings’ annual conference which took place at Celtic Manor, Wales, in May


ITM has a new chairman, Sarah Makings, a nine-year veteran of KPMG. She takes over from Nicola Lomas, formerly of Omnicom, and promises to enrich the organisation’s resources and “give help and guidance to buyers that I didn’t have when I applied to be an ITM Board Director four years ago”. The official handover was part of day one


of ITM’s annual conference, which saw futurologist Mark Stevenson (pictured) of Optimistontour open the two-day event, promising a future with self-drive cars, 3D printers, mobile phones that never run out, pilotless planes and company cultures that nurture new ideas. “If you think digital was a big deal then


strap yourself in,” he cautioned, flagging up that it will be a battle between the traditionalists and the forces of progress. ITM board director Vicky Anderson detailed her two-year journey to achieve the same degree of control with meetings spend as she has with transient travel, flagging up challenges over who owns the spend, more fragmented data and little overlap of transient and meeting hotels. In the session on getting the best from


payment programmes, Geoff Allwright of the Airbus Group highlighted the challenges of travel now being owned by multiple stakeholders such as HR, finance and a third party VAT reclaim company. “We used to own it all but now it’s split five ways and finding the cut-off was challenging,” he said. A Futurefest plenary closed the first day,


gathering ‘visionaries’ on stage to share their views. British Airways’ Richard Tams majored on airline distribution: “The two dimensional green screen of the GDS does not cut it but NDC offers a dramatically increased value for airlines. NDC will be our shop window to intermediaries in a rich way, making it easier to sell our products.” UBS Global Travel Lead, Mark Cuschieri, pointed up the move to a more traveller- centric programme and warned that


“Travel agents have access to limited and commodotised airline information and they need to move to the new world of air retailing which will reflect the differences between airlines”


distribution could be just as fragmented in a post-NDC world depending on how many airlines adopt the new standard. Amadeus’ Head of Sales & Consulting,


Guy Snelgar, believes behavioural economics will be the next big thing to help engage with travellers, while Stephane Pingaud of IATA thought user experience was the goal and that “NDC will facilitate that change”. The contentious issue of Open Booking/


TM2.0 was one of the sessions that opened the second day of the conference. Its principles – of shop anywhere, book anyone, book anywhere and book anything – were extolled by session moderator Scott Gillespie who masterminded the concept in the US two years ago. Panellist Robbie Hughes, an ITM Buyer


Director with a global IT company, has been working with open booking for two years to allay “the friction with our employees to the command and control of our programme. They wanted the same experience as when they book their retail and holidays while we needed to ensure duty of care, being able to track data and keep a handle on costs.” His company utilises Concur’s TripIt, an itinerary aggregator, and his travel policy has now been reduced to a single page. Hughes said that his travellers – whose


average age is 27 – were “over the moon not to be fighting against the travel policy.” His company is offering a mix of booking options and he believes negotiated deals


become the ceiling rate. Gillespie reckons open booking will dominate eventually as “suppliers avoid the GDS fares and buyers avoid the TMC fees”. Stephane Pingaud of IATA gave the


rationale for the company’s proposed new airline standard, NDC, when he said: “Travel agents have access to limited and commodotised airline information and they need to move to the new world of air retailing which will reflect the differences between airlines.” It will mean the difference between just accessing fares, availability and schedule today and, in future, a wide range of ancillaries items and detailed product information. The session on travel risk management pointed up that while the employer has overall responsibility of risk mitigation, the traveller also has a duty to the employer. “It’s a balancing act,” said Emma Lamb of Bank of America. “Travellers must sign pre- trip destination information to say they’ve read it, and be honest and decline any trips that go outside their comfort zone.” Leigh Burns of International SOS (ISOS)


gave the extreme example of Exxon Mobile sacking any employee that does not complete their malaria medication, for example. “Travel managers are high in their awareness but it starts to fall apart if there’s a policy on risk mitigation but no-one communicates it. Everyone must understand their role,” said Burns.


THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 49


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