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BBT Forum: London
Travel buyers gathered at the Grange City Hotel London, where talk about security was the dominant topic. Tom Newcombe reports
A DETECTIVE SERGEANT FROM THE NATIONAL COUNTER TERRORISM SECURITY OFFICE (NaCTSO) informed travel buyers of the impact of a terrorism incident such as the Tunisia attacks in 2015. He highlighted Project Griffin, a NaCTSO initiative, which aims to advise and familiarise managers and employees on security and counter-terrorism issues. It works by encouraging the public to be vigilant and to report suspicious behaviour around their community. “The UK counter terror model is looked at admiringly around the world,” he said. “The public talk to the police and the police talk to the security services and it’s that simple system that helps makes our model work.” He added that the police are working with other countries to ensure British travellers feel as safe abroad as they do at home. “We want to influence those companies looking after Brits to work better,” he said. “We want travellers to feel safe whether they are on domestic business or visiting countries such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt.” Speaking about recent
terrorism incidents around the world he said the attacks in Tunisia were “game-changers” in the way countries operated around security. “The key threat to our national security is still from Daesh,” he said. “It’s still those UK nationals who have gone to Syria to join
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Daesh and then returned to the UK intending to commit attacks in this country.” The detective sergeant also spoke about the knock-on complications of managing a crisis after it has occurred. “When the Paris attacks happened, security was obviously enhanced, but after three days France had run out of security guards – so the place to recruit was from French-speaking African countries, where you have to question how strict security vetting is.” Travel and security manager
at international development firm DAI, Sarah Marshall, talked about how best to internally co- ordinate your duty-of-care to your traveller. “The first and one of the most important priorities is preparation,” she said. “Start to build relationships with suppliers and ensure you have a business continuity plan.”
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INTELLIGENCE Another panel session discussed business intelligence and how, when linked to the company’s vision and goals, it can deliver great value to the business. Lufthansa director David Doyle said it’s important to keep up with changing trends and traveller behaviour. “The expectations of the traveller are changing at such a rate the industry is struggling to keep up. There are so many new disruptive technologies that are altering travellers’ behaviour and expectations.”
One buyer said they had tried to introduce a Twitter feed for their travellers to use and keep updated with relevant news and content, but it was too time-consuming to keep going. “It was becoming a real challenge. I struggled to keep it updated and, in the end, we abandoned it,” he said.
In the final session of the
day, led by Panacea Publishing editorial director Tom Otley, safety and security was a hot topic. Nina & Pinta consultant Chris Pouney said he was “staggered” that companies will have policies in place relating to air travel, such as ‘no more than two senior members’ on the same flight but why this “didn’t extend to ground transport”. Robert Hughes, travel manager at cloud computing firm Salesforce, urged buyers to ensure all their travel policies are up-to-date and any major security incident such as Brussels or Paris should result in a “re-evaluation” of travel policy.
¢ BBT Forums offer candid round-table discussion and peer networking for travel buyers. The next Forum takes place at the Grange City Hotel London on October 7. Visit
buyingbusinesstravel.com/events
Event location sponsor:
18 BBT JULY/AUGUST 2016
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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