NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS CONTINUED FROM THE BACK
Daus told corporate travel
buyers: “They are coming to you with their fancy B2B software and you need to decide do you use it? The standard of care in your industry is up here. If you hire a company that is reckless in its duty of care, you can be sued.” He identified a catalogue of
“risks” around driver vetting, employee safety, corporate liability, “negligent hiring”, data security, insurance and Uber’s policy of surge pricing – “charging two or three times the standard rate at peak times”. He said: “Don’t deviate
from your duty of care. Do put disclaimers in place and warnings to employees. If a driver doesn’t have a [taxi] licence you should not use them. Ban or limit surge pricing. “Be aware drivers can use an
alias and that Uber only insures when the app is on. If there is an accident, a third party can sue you because you allowed people to use services that deviate from your duty-of-care policies.”
Daus added: “There is
obviously big money behind Uber. [But] it is not the only app in the world. They are not the dominant player in all markets. They may think they have this sewn up, but they don’t.” However, PwC business
travel manager Will Hasler told the conference: “Uber is now the most-expensed ground transportation in US business travel.” He reported figures suggesting Uber accounted for 41% of corporate expense claims for ground transport in the US in the final quarter of 2015, against 39% for car rental
and 20% for other taxis. › The ITM revealed it is reverting to its former title of the Institute of Travel Management at the conference. The organisation rebranded as the Institute of Travel & Meetings in 2009.
Security, distribution and direct sales dominated discussion at the ITM Conference in Newport last week. Ian Taylor reports
Accor raises its game with €225m digital investment
Hoteliers are “in a battle” with online travel agents (OTAs) and other “digital attackers”, a senior UK hospitality figure told the Institute of Travel Management (ITM).
Chris Roe, Accor UK and
Ireland vice-president for sales, distribution and loyalty, said: “
Booking.com spent $1 billion on advertising last year. Metasearch is a growing influence. We needed to respond.” Roe listed the “new digital
attackers” as aggregators, OTAs and “innovators” such as Airbnb, and highlighted Accor’s response in a €225 million investment in eight “digital innovation” programmes and its opening of the
accorhotels.com site to independent hoteliers last year. He said: “We launched
Accorhotels to help in the battle with OTAs. We’re looking to get it into the GDS. It was not done to
‘Travel search is exploding but basics are same’
The travel industry has a tendency to “generalise too much” about changes “at the perimeter” when “the fundamentals of travel don’t change”. Svend Leirvaag, Amadeus vice-
president of industry affairs, told the ITM Conference: “We still travel physically. The changes are in how we search, how we consume, the things around how we move. The fundamentals don’t change. “Buyers want a choice and
reassurance they get value for money. Suppliers want to
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travelweekly.co.uk 12 May 2016
ROE: ‘We had to respond to
Booking.com’s advertising’
alienate or annoy [buyers] – it was to compete with the OTAs. We are in a battle.
“This is not just about B2C
[sales]. We’re investing heavily in B2B platforms.” Roe defended direct marketing
to corporate travellers saying: “We don’t force customers to sign up to these things.”
sell without competition. The transparency required by the buyer side is in conflict with the supplier side. If you’re a buyer, you want an RFP [request for a proposal]. The incumbent [supplier] never wants an RFP.” Leirvaag added: “Travel search is
exploding. The look-to-book ratio is 1,000 to one. A few years ago it was 10 to one. [But] direct sales are becoming re-intermediated – 70% of
airline.com traffic comes through intermediaries. “What you thought were direct
sales are, in fact, indirect sales and the cost of sale in this channel is growing. With some OTAs, airlines pay $88 per booking.” He said: “At the heart of the value chain, I don’t see massive
Etihad UK general manager James Harrison agreed, saying: “We don’t market direct very often. When we do, we’re looking at incremental offers and saying ‘You might be interested’.” Concur European vice-president and general manager Scott Torrey highlighted the direct marketing moves by major hotel groups such as Hilton’s ‘Stop clicking around’ and Marriott’s ‘It pays to book direct’ campaigns. He said: “We can’t ignore this trend among suppliers.” His colleague Eoin Landers,
Concur international sales executive, told travel managers: “Suppliers continuously market direct. Even though we employ hundreds of engineers to try to keep up with them, we won’t be able to. So we opened the Concur platform. Travellers will book direct, but with Concur the data will come back into your system.”
LEIRVAAG: ‘Value chain hasn’t changed massively, it’s evolved’
change, I see evolution. At the perimeter there is massive change.” However, he added: “Different parts of the value chain have to collaborate in ways we’ve not seen before.”
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