DIARY OF EVENTS


2016 July 12-13


Serviced Apartment Summit, Park Plaza, London servicedapartmentsummit.com


July 16-20 GBTA Convention 2016, Denver, Colorado gbta.org


September 27-29 IT&CM Asia and CTW Asia-Pacific, Bangkok itcma.com


October 7 BBT Forum, Grange City Hotel, London buyingbusinesstravel.com/events


October 26-28 ACTE Global Summit, in partnership with


CAPA Centre for Aviation, Hotel Okura, Amsterdam acte.org


November 7-9 World Travel Market, Excel London wtmlondon.com


November 14-16 GBTA Conference 2016, Frankfurt gbta.com


November 14-17 Phocuswright Conference, Los Angeles phocuswrightconference.com


2017


January 23 Business Travel Awards, Grosvenor House Hotel, London businesstravelawards.com


February 22-23 Business Travel Show,


Olympia Grand, London businesstravelshow.com


March 8-12 ITB Berlin global travel trade show itb-berlin.de/en


98 BBT JULY AUGUST 2016 BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM


ITM UPDATE SIMONE BUCKLEY


Simone Buckley Chief executive, Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM)


PICK UP THE PACE M


Don’t avoid innovation – take control of technology to lead the way


y tenure in the business travel sector stretches back as far as hand-written tickets. It never ceases to amaze me, therefore, just how far technology has taken us. It’s probably fair to say that we,


as an industry, have over the years not moved as quickly as the consumer world, or even some other sectors, in terms of adoption. Whether it was mobile devices, apps, cloud computing or business intelligence tools, evolution has been fairly docile. But when all’s said and done, we have been a business-to- business (B2B) sector built upon hugely robust and effective technology platforms (aka global distribution systems). When online booking tools started gaining real traction around a decade ago, they were considered by some to be fairly revolutionary; when eventually combined with expense management systems we thought we were arriving at a whole new level. With hindsight, though, it was all quite basic stuff. Now, as we enter the age of traveller-centricity, we are becoming, in many ways, a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) sector. We have to up the pace. Regular readers of this publication and my column will be familiar with the drivers of change. The consequence has been a deluge of travel technology start-ups disrupting the supply chain and traditional processes, by targeting various aspects of the business travel cycle: pre-trip, mid-trip, post-trip, reporting, safety and security – the list goes on. At the ITM conference in May we had a load of companies queuing up to get into our innovation lab. What struck me though, is that many of these products could bring extraordinary value to travellers and corporations, but we will need to make sure the parameters of managed travel are expanded to include them. There are products out there that will unquestionably make life easier for travellers; they don’t sit in anyone’s budget or policy. If they are used by travellers, the travel manager would currently have no visibility of the transaction. This could make it difficult for the travel manager and the company to budget, or to gather data to negotiate. This is not a reason for avoiding new products; in fact, it is an argument for travel managers to look at the bigger picture and be the drivers of innovation by introducing them to their businesses first, before their travellers, and making sure they seamlessly fit within policy, technology and budget.


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