CONFERENCES SERVICED APARTMENTS
SERVICED APARTMENT AWARDS
NEW AWARDS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SERVICED APARTMENT, aparthotel, extended-stay and short-term rental industry have been launched, and Buying Business Travel is a partner for the event. The Serviced Apartment Awards will be held at London’s Grange Tower Bridge Hotel on March 21. Independent judges will decide the winners from 16 categories, with two being voted for by Serviced Apartment News readers. The awards are free to enter and are open to all serviced apartment, aparthotel, extended-stay and short-term rental operators, alliances, providers and suppliers worldwide. There are categories for properties, operators, service providers, agents, marketing campaigns, innovation and individuals. The deadline for entries is February 1. For more information and to enter, visit servicedapartmentnews. com/home/awards
AIRPORTS
Flybe: open up RAF Northolt to ease Heathrow capacity crunch
Flybe is calling on the government to open up RAF Northolt to boost regional routes and ease capacity issues at Heathrow. The airline wants to start operating services from the airport in west London, which
SMEs SME growth ‘critical’ to UK economy
SMALL- AND MEDIUM-ENTERPRISE (SME) growth is a big driver of business travel and “critical” in supporting the UK economy, according to the GTMC. In its third quarterly 2015 review it shows the importance of SMEs to the
10 BBT JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
UK economy and found its growth is “incredibly positive for the future of UK plc”.
In 2014, SMEs generated turnover of £1.6 trillion, compared with £2 trillion created by larger companies.
The GTMC said the survey highlights the fact that as the number of SMEs rises and they generate more turnover, the more business travel grows. The review reports aggregated transactions of its members have increased by 7 per cent year-on-year.
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
would link to regional airports such as Teeside and Liverpool. The government’s last spending review did not include Flybe’s proposal to operate twice-daily return services to an initial five UK regional destinations.
Flybe said this was a missed opportunity to provide improved regional connectivity to London, regional access to Heathrow Airport and “much needed additional contribution to government finances”.
GBTA 2015: 39% of UK business travellers
booking direct
CONCUR EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT TIM MACDONALD unveiled “surprising” research showing 39 per cent of UK business travellers have booked directly with a supplier in the past year. The research, conducted with the
GBTA Foundation, polled more than 750 business travellers in France, Germany and the UK. It found that across these countries, 62-84 per cent of travellers said direct bookings are allowed in certain situations, while 29-52 per cent said they were allowed in ‘many’ or ‘all’ circumstances. Speaking at the GBTA conference in
Frankfurt, MacDonald said he believed that, regardless of improvements to policies and corporate booking tools, “there will always be exception-based direct supplier booking”, and that “the future demands” travel and expense platforms that are fully integrated with all channels and service providers. Hotel booking firm HRS also
revealed GBTA Foundation-partnered research, which showed traditional processing of expense reports costs a business Ð53 per transaction on average. HRS vice-president, Jason Long, pointed out that a company averaging 20,000 expense transactions a year spends more than Ð1 million in resources, such as man-hours, plus another Ð178,000 correcting errors on expense reports – the study found that 19 per cent of claims contain errors. See GBTA conference report, p21
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