NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS CONTINUED FROM THE BACK
fund a third runway, arguing: “Heathrow’s investors do pretty well out of its monopoly hub status.” The shareholders in Heathrow
parent company FGP Topco are led by Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial, which has a 25% stake and previously owned the airport outright. Sovereign wealth and pension funds from Australia, Canada, China, Qatar and Singapore own most of the remaining shares. A Heathrow spokesman
said: “Heathrow is determined to work with our airline partners to deliver expansion as efficiently as possible, keeping landing charges low.” Yet this was not the first
warning from BA and parent IAG. Cruz’s boss, IAG chief executive Willie Walsh, told the Abta Travel Matters conference in London in June: “Heathrow is the most expensive hub airport in the world with a history of inflating costs. You cannot trust Heathrow to deliver anything in a cost-effective manner. Customers have been ripped off by Heathrow for years. “If the government chooses
Heathrow’s proposal, we want to see shareholders shoulder the risk and the burden. If there is expensive expansion at Heathrow, we will expand through our other hubs.” Cruz also echoed Walsh in dismissing Gatwick’s case, saying: “There is simply not sufficient demand from customers or airlines. The majority of long-haul airlines that start operations at Gatwick either quit and leave London or go to Heathrow as soon as possible.” Walsh told Travel Matters in
June: “We struggle to see any business case for expanding Gatwick. We will consider our position at the airport if the
government backs its expansion.” › Talk Back, page 19
Travel Convention 2016: The role of technology in travel featured h
Strategist predicts era of data-driven customisation
Travel firms were challenged over whether they are ready to offer more-customised products if customers are prepared to give them more information.
Digital strategist Thimon De
Jong, director of Whetston, a ‘strategic foresight think-tank’, said the ‘you know me society’ is coming. “What would you do if you knew
everything about your customers, not just a little?” he asked. “What would that mean for the
strategy of your organisation? Because that’s where we are going.” De Jong said work he had done
with Vodafone showed people are prepared to give more information about themselves as long as they get a more customised service. “What we are doing right now
is customisation based on past behaviour. We are predicting behaviour, opinion mining, sentiment analysis,” he said. This promises a future in which
leading online players such as Google or Facebook will know people are primed to buy a holiday
Agents urged to give back value as quickly as possible
Travel firms will be increasingly evaluated based on a ‘return on attention’ assessment – how efficiently they provide customers with the information they are looking for. Dr Tom Chatfield, a British writer
and ‘technology philosopher’, warned Abta delegates they should beware of over-automation.
78
travelweekly.co.uk 20 October 2016 DE JONG: ‘What would you do if you knew all about your customers?’ De Jong warned that firms
“Customers will be saying: ‘I want you to use my data, I want you to customise’”
before they know it themselves. “The shift is that customers will
be saying to you: ‘I want you to use my data, I want you to customise. Ask me for my consent, and here is a little bit more data’. “Are we ready for when
customers ask that question?” He said companies should
use technology to give people a suitable return for the amount of time they devote to their brand, but ensure there is a human element in the process too. “It’s very important to think
about the amount you are giving people in return for their attention. Give back value as quickly as possible,” said Chatfield. “What’s the minimum
information required to deliver maximum value? People are irritated by things that waste time.” Chatfield described social media
should beware “short-term mania” that prevents them from engaging in more-strategic, conscious, long-term thinking. “We live in an age of distraction,
an impulse society, but when you are bored, you do your best thinking. This is a piece of free advice – get bored,” he said. De Jong added that in an age
of increasing distrust it was important firms reward people who have a long-term impact on performance.
as an extension of the profoundly social nature of human beings. He said: “In an era of astonishing
information sharing, what do we do? Mostly we talk to each other about each other.” Chatfield said technology should
tap into this rather than push people aside. “We will never live in a world
where we want machines and automation to do everything. The expert is acting as a translator, saying I can help you translate your desires, your interests into a language that is easily understood.”
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