ITM CONFERENCE St Andrews
BBT DIGITAL EDITOR TOM NEWCOMBE REPORTS FROM THE THREE-DAY ANNUAL EVENT IN SCOTLAND
THE JOURNEY TO 2020 was the theme of this year’s conference, which focused on complexities of the disruptive players in corporate travel over the next five years. It featured sessions on technology, risk, NDC, cost management and personalisation. There were buyer-only sessions, specialist streams, a gala dinner and keynote speakers, including Michael O’Leary and Sir Chris Hoy. BBT was once again media partner to the conference.
FUTURE RISKS ITN’s head of high-risk security outlined what risks and potential conflicts could arise over the next few years in emerging parts of the world. Colin Pereira said buyers should educate their travellers
16 BBT MAY/JUNE 2015
about risk in countries where their companies could be expanding over the next five- to-ten years. He spoke about his own work at ITN and also as deputy head of high risk at the BBC. “Look out for trends in countries that are emerging, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria and Brazil – all of these have the potential for high risk. “These countries are building roads and expanding infrastructure. Companies are designing business models to enter these markets and will soon start taking people from the West and putting them in places that are extremely dangerous. I send a lot of journalists to emerging markets to cover conflict issues.” Pereira urged buyers to look at the entire country when assessing risk, and
used the example of Egypt in 2011 where the unrest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square was not replicated across the whole area. “Ask your travellers on the ground what is happening, because there are many times I see the news and panic, then I phone the traveller and they are fine, so don’t get too carried away with this risk assessment,” he said. Pereira, who also runs a consultancy advising companies operating in fragile environments, said it’s important to have good contingency planning, as it’s a legal requirement and part of company’s duty-of-care to employees. “You can’t control risk and the traveller does not care about that piece of risk assessment paper,” he added.
“The only way that risk assessment matters to the traveller is when it will benefit them, and that’s your contingency planning. How am I going to evacuate? What hospital am I going to put them in? Travellers feel so much better when they know all these things and you’ve thought them through.”
GOOGLE WARNING Google’s head of travel urged the corporate travel industry to “get good at mobile” and to start investing more in that channel because “the consumer is already there”. Anna Chomse said the industry had fallen behind other sectors such as retail, and travellers were becoming “increasingly frustrated” by the lack of convergence to mobile
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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