CONFERENCE
currency volatility and a laptop ban on flights. He said from a business
Gadget Show TV presenter Jason Bradbury
Advantage Conference 2017
A NEW GENERATION, who cannot remember a world without the internet, are beginning to enter the workforce and will have a profound impact on the way we work and travel, delegates were told at the annual Advantage conference. The three-day event, themed
‘Man and Machine’, took place at the Club Med Opio en Provence resort in the south of France. Sara Rooney, associate at consultancy Festive Road, told business travel delegates that by 2020 more than 50 per cent of the world’s workforce will be made up of Gen Y (aka Millennials, born 1980-1994) and Gen Z (born from 1995 onwards). Rooney said Gen Z characteristics will increasingly influence the wider business travelling demographic. She said this generation are used to being surrounded by consumer ratings on every product and service – ratings which they value above personal recom- mendations. Keynote speakers included six-times Olympic champion cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, former Gadget Show TV presenter Jason Bradbury, and Alistair Pritchard, lead travel partner at accoun- tancy giant Deloitte.
COMPLIANCE INCENTIVES Pritchard cited a range of challenges likely to impact the travel sector including Brexit negotiations, regulatory changes, consumer confidence,
18 BBT July/August 2017
travel perspective, “it’s not just about being not able to work on the flight, it’s about not being able to work in the airport, and worse is corporate policies. My business, along with many others, has a policy of no laptops in the hold for data security reasons. If I can’t take a laptop with me, that could make a four-day business trip absolutely useless.” During his work with the
Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine initiatives, Pritchard said, “One of the issues we talk about is the skills economy – at the moment we don’t have the educational establishments developing the skills we’re going to need as a community in ten to 20 years’ time.” This, he said, meant that restrictions on European freedom of movement could present a significant challenge for the UK.
COMPLIANCE INCENTIVES Debating corporate travel programmes, QA Travel man- aging director Kevin Thom said employees are expected to comply with company rules in other areas of work, so offering rewards for travel compliance creates “a culture of ‘what’s in it for me?’” Key Travel’s global head of product Simon Bennett said travellers could be engaged by offering incentives that didn’t directly reward the traveller. He described an initiative where a donation was made to a homeless charity every time travellers booked via the OBT. “The travellers really bought into that,” said Bennett. But he pointed out the scheme was only effective because the user experience on the booking tool was good enough to drive behaviour change, so the travellers continued to use the OBT after the charity scheme ended.
RISK STRATEGIES
Adapt risk policies to ‘modern day’ travel, buyers urged
BUSINESSES ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH to ensure their travel risk strategies are fit for “modern-day” business travel, according to a report published by risk management firms Airmic and International SOS. The report notes that business travel has grown by 25 per cent over the past decade, with businesses sending employees to a wider range of territories, including high or extreme risk regions. In addition, the nature of terrorism has changed such that low-risk destinations can become high- risk in a “matter of hours”. According to the report, insurance – while important – is not a sufficient mitigation strategy, especially in today’s “fluid and complex geopolitical environment”. It urges businesses to gain reliable sources of relevant intelligence, and flexible and pre-rehearsed plans in place to ensure a “quick and proportionate response” to any crisis impacting its people.
CONFERENCE REPORT
TRAVEL BUYERS URGED TO AUDIT HOTEL RATES
MORE THAN ONE IN SIX CORPORATE HOTEL CONTRACTS CONTAINS AN ERROR, travel buyers heard at the HRS Corporate Travel Forum in London. GBTA vice-president Catherine McGavock urged buyers to frequently audit their hotel rates, as she presented joint GBTA-HRS research that polled more than 400 travel buyers around the world. McGavock said those contract errors cost companies an average of 14 per cent more than their negotiated hotel rate. “Regular rate auditing makes a real difference,” she said. HRS vice-president Flavio Ghringhelli said air travel is a seller’s market, whereas hotels are a buyer’s market. Just 250 airlines supply 95 per cent of all international flights, while of the world’s 450,000 hotels, 76 per cent are independent. He said the fragmentation of the hotel market offers more savings – 20-35 per cent
compared to 7-9 per cent with buying air, but means higher ‘complexity’ costs in the distribution chain. Another issue for buyers and TMCs is that just 23 per cent of hotels in the world are available on the GDSs. Discussing ‘total cost of ownership’ of a travel programme, Duncan Brock, group director at CIPS (the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply), said he is seeing more demand for sales skills by procurement professionals. “You need to have done your homework to make a compelling case for change.” He cited ‘emotional
intelligence’ as one of the skillsets, and one buyer added her company had a ‘business partnering programme’ to help procurement people harness emotional intelligence to engage and connect with suppliers and partners. n See full report at
buyingbusinesstravel.com
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104