CELLARS IN THE SKY
VISITORS TO THE SHOW WERE ABLE TO ENJOY the world’s finest high- flying wines when they visited the Buying Business Travel stand. Our sister title, Business Traveller, was showcasing the winners of its annual Cellars in the Sky Awards, by offering visitors the gold medal-winning wines served by airlines in their first and business class cabins.
These include best champagnes,
red and white wines, and best fortified/dessert wines. The wine tastings for visitors at the show followed an awards ceremony at the Hilton London Paddington, hosted by wine expert Charles Metcalfe, co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge. A panel of independent judges included Tim Atkin and Oz Clarke. British Airways was the biggest
winner, taking the coveted Gold Medal for Best Overall Wine Cellar. It was also placed first in the Best Business Class Cellar, Best First Class Red and Best Business Class White categories. Two airlines took home two Gold Medals apiece – Singapore Airlines for Best First Class Cellar and Best First Class Fortified/Dessert, and Qantas for Best First Class Sparkling and Best Business Class Fortified/Dessert.
Garuda Indonesia took the top spot for Best First Class White. Cathay Pacific won the Gold Medal for Best Business Class Sparkling, and Finnair for Best Business Class Red.
For more information, visit
www.businesstraveller.com/ cellars-2014
82 BBT MARCH/APRIL 2015
non-travel markets, helping companies and individuals gain instant control and visibility of their purchasing and expenses,” said Radcliffe.
“One of the first new innovations from
Fraedom is a simple, easy-to-use and in- expensive service which offers a one-stop process from initial online booking, through to the reclaiming and payment of expenses.”
BUYERS URGED TO UNDERSTAND ‘SIGNIFICANCE’ OF NDC Travel buyers were urged to understand the importance of New Distribution Capability (NDC) and the “significant” effect it will have on the sector. Speaking on a panel discussing how NDC will affect corporate travel programmes, founder of consultancy firm Festive Road, Paul Tilstone, said if buyers think NDC is a non-issue “then they are wrong”.
“NDC will be a catalyst for dramatic change in the industry and will also be a poster child on how things need to change in travel,” he said. Travelport vice-president Ian Heywood
echoed Tilstone’s words, stating NDC “is the most significant thing affecting travel in the past 40 years”.
NDC is a set of technology standards, which will give airlines the ability to distrib- ute all their content through third parties. Airlines currently feel they are missing out on extra revenue through, as an example, ancillary fees because they are unable to differentiate their product offering. Heywood said the introduction of NDC means buyers can “throw a lot of their programmes out the window” and have something a lot more dynamic. He added airlines will have more dynamic pricing models, such as offering
cheaper fares on certain days of travel and adding “different steps” to the programme, from changing discounted rates to control- ling ancillary fees. Tilstone said it will give buyers more
control over the type of deal they want. “It’s an opportunity to re-think your cor- porate travel programme, build it up from scratch and see what channels you can work with the airline on,” he said.
ONE-FIFTH OF WORKERS ‘FIDDLING’ THEIR EXPENSES Research unveiled at the show found the majority of employees are still not using automated tools for claiming expenses. The study of 1,235 employees carried out technology firm KDS revealed that 42 per cent of UK office workers use an automated expense management system. It also found that around 20 per cent ad- mitted to ‘fiddling’ their expenses, although this was usually to claim ‘modest amounts’, such as rounding-up car mileage by ‘one or two miles’ or increasing a taxi fare using a blank receipt by a couple of pounds. KDS revealed that 48 per cent of workers
currently submit expenses on an ‘offline’ spreadsheet system, such as Microsoft Excel, while 4 per cent still use handwritten forms. The study found that 88 per cent complete their expenses during company time, while those working for bigger firms (more than 500 employees) were able to complete the process more quickly by using automated tools than workers using other more manual methods.
YOUNGER TRAVELLERS ‘MORE COMPLIANT’
The majority of delegates at the hosted buyer pre-show conference said that
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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