BUSINESS TRAVEL SHOW
LET’S TALK BUSINESS
As official media partner to the Business Travel Show, BBT reports on the show’s key sessions and news
HE BUSINESS TRAVEL SHOW hosted a landmark event this year, as it celebrated its 25th anniversary with an energetic and colourful exhibition, attracting more than 9,000 visitors and 400 hosted buyers at the Olympia centre in West Kensington, London. As always, the show featured an engaging mix of sessions and seminars. At one event, titled “Brexit and the global risk outlook”, travel buyers were advised to “remain flexible and agile” to deal with the potential disruption caused by a no-deal Brexit. Rudiger Bruss, global category manager, travel and mobility services for tyre firm Continental, predicted “costs [of travel to the UK] will go down because demand will plummet” if there is a no-deal Brexit. Florian Storp, head of the business travel committee at German travel
T
association DRV, said: “Keep calm and don’t panic – follow the news and make reasonable decisions.” A poll carried out at the session found nearly half the audience (49 per cent) said they expected levels of travel to stay the same after Brexit, while 37 per cent said there was likely to be a reduction in travel and only 14 per cent said it would be increasing.
KEEP IT SIMPLE Buyers looking to create a multinational or global travel programme were urged to “keep things simple” in the “Travel Programme Success” session. Three European-based buyers shared how they had rolled out a global programme, with one buyer explaining: “We have a global policy across the board but it’s not overly complicated. You want people to buy into it, so keep it flexible and keep
it simple. The key thing is how can you use technology to communicate better to your travellers and travel bookers. We have achieved 91 per online adoption. We don’t police it – we subtly push people to do it.” Another buyer said it was important to use both global and local policies. “The global policy is an umbrella for local policies,” she said. “Local policies deal with stricter things, such as local finance and tax requirements.” The third buyer said the keys to
being successful were “process, reporting and having one account manager” to work with at a TMC. “I only want to talk to my account manager because they understand my thinking, policies and approach to travel management,” she added. “I don’t want to have discussions with every single travel agent.”
The buyers noted a major obstacle was finding a single global payments
“The more seamless suppliers can make a journey using technology, the more travellers will want to comply with their corporate policy”
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MARCH/APRIL
2019
buyingbusinesstravel.com
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