TRAVEL BOOKERS
EXECUTIVE DECISIONS
There are pitfalls to asking staff to book travel as an additional duty
T
HIRTY YEARS AGO booking business travel looked very different. Airline tickets were impenetrably complex, often handwritten by specialist travel agents on fiddly carbon paper. Check-in could only be done at the airport desk, piles of paper in hand. Then came finding a hotel room via expensive international calls and far too many faxes. For companies where staff made regular trips invariably the job of making bookings was limited to either external agents, or
in-house specialists whose sole job was to make bookings on behalf of colleagues.
With the advent of the internet, though, that all changed. The digital age brought with it price com- parison sites, online booking and check-in, along with the ability to scroll through a list of hotels for free. The impact of this on the cost and ease of booking business trips has been huge. Hours to book a flight have become minutes, piles of paperwork reduced to an e-ticket tucked safely away in a digital wallet. As a result, the approach to travel booking is far more varied. Some companies still opt to keep the job of travel booking limited to internal specialist teams. That’s the case at Lush Cosmetics where all booking requests are emailed directly to a central inbox staffed by a team whose sole job is booking travel on behalf of others, explains head of travel Amanda Taylor. “We work directly across the business in all areas; working with founders, directors and retail staff, manufacturing teams and digital staff to name a few.”
The approach has led to “few issues when it comes to
booking problems”, she adds. “We have the full support of staff to either work on their behalf or get them involved in the process as and when required as the passport holder – particularly for passport renewals and visas.” In other companies though, the job of travel booking individual trips is no longer limited to specialists
buyingbusinesstravel.com
alone. “Naturally, if everything is online and bookable for the leisure market on Skyscanner or
Booking.com then it makes sense for travellers to make their own booking when it comes to business travel,” says Michael McSperrin, global head of facilities and support services at Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS). “They will know best what is a convenient time, airport or hotel, and so we predominantly encourage people to book online directly [via Egencia] themselves. When you have a traveller booking their own travel I find they’re more bought into the whole journey.” Not everyone in an organisation will have the time or capacity to sit down and find the best airfare though. What does AMS recommend for those employees? “We as a business ask ourselves: Is it a valuable, cost-effective use of their time to be checking flight options and plan- ning an itinerary?” adds McSperrin. “This is especially relevant when individuals at a senior level are those more likely to be travelling intercontinental on transatlantic flights which can be more complex.”
IN-HOUSE STAFF
At AMS, and many other companies, there is a new layer of travel bookers organising trips on behalf of others, but for whom it’s a job juggled along with many others. Often it’s a role that falls to personal assistants and executive assistants, working on behalf of senior members of staff. It can be a “time-consuming” part of the job, says
Helen Gower, global executive assistant at legal services firm Jordans. She is tasked with booking travel for all 150 staff in the company’s Bristol office. But it can be diffi- cult, particularly when “the traveller isn’t sure what they want, or don’t give me the full information from the off”. It’s an approach that does have clear benefits though, over and above outsourcing all bookings. “They have the relationship with their boss or travellers, and they also know the destinations and where people need to travel
WORDS MEGAN TATUM 2019 MARCH/APRIL 81
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