ACCORDING TO AMON
WORDS AMON COHEN
ARE WE THE BAD GUYS?
Travel managers don’t want to end up with an even lower reputation than journalists by failing to engage with climate change, but the way forward is not clear-cut
about the environmental consequences of flying to Japan, also contacted her, wanting to know what non-travel alternatives were available, if any.
A I doubt either of those discussions would
have arisen even a couple of years ago. It’s more evidence why sustainability has very quickly shot up to become the number one topic of debate in travel management. I see further proof in my email inbox, into which plops at least one press release daily from travel suppliers proclaiming their environmental credentials. Just today a company boasted it had been rated the most sustainable hotel group in the world, while another chain announced planting 10,000 trees. Yesterday, it was an airline launching a “sustainability platform” that shows pas- sengers the climate effect of their flights and allows them to offset their CO2 emissions. This publicity blizzard suggests the travel industry is moving quickly to avoid being positioned as a villain driving climate change, and, presumably, to reassure poten- tial customers like the employees knocking on the door of that Swedish travel manager. But what about us on the travel buyer
side? It’s no use blaming suppliers for being polluters. They are responding to demand. I use the words “us” and “we” because I’ve covered travel management for 27 years. If someone asks me at a party what I do for a living, I tell them I work in business travel rather than that I’m a journalist, partly because journalists aren’t held in very high esteem. But now I am beginning to wonder
TRAVEL MANAGER IN SWEDEN recently told me a young employee in her company needed to visit London and requested making the journey by train. Another employee, unhappy
if I might actually smell a little better if I tell them I’m a journalist after all? In a flight-shaming world, is the travel sector becoming a bit uncool? That’s why, as I mentioned in my last column, I reckon we need a serious re-think of what a travel manager does. A fire officer in a business is someone responsible for avoiding fires or, if one does break out, mini- mising the damage it causes. Perhaps a travel manager should be similar: not necessarily someone who makes travel happen but who makes it not happen, unless it’s really needed. I’m in the foothills of developing my un- derstanding of business travel sustainability. Actually, I think the entire travel manage- ment profession is. Perhaps we need some kind of industry-wide enquiry to establish facts and suggest a way forward. For example, when an airline offers offsetting, does that work? Can you really totally mitigate all those harmful emissions through planting trees? Instinctively, I’m sceptical of that notion, but we all need to learn the science to judge better. There’s work to be done, not just so we can hold our heads up high at parties, but to ensure we in travel management play our responsible part in safeguarding the planet.
Amon Cohen is a specialist
business travel writer, conference moderator and media trainer
THE TRAVEL
INDUSTRY IS MOVING QUICKLY TO AVOID BEING POSITIONED AS A VILLAIN DRIVING CLIMATE CHANGE
60 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
CODED MESSAGE There’s definitely one person who shouldn’t be allowed to travel at all, and that’s me. Regular readers will recall I went up to London for the Business Travel Awards in January and only realised late that night I had completely forgotten to bring any record of which hotel I had booked. I hadn’t donned black tie again until returning to town last month for the Business Travel Journalism Awards. After the ceremony, I caught a late train to Leicester, where I was booked to stay in a house through Airbnb. Entrance to the property was by punching a code into a door security device. This time, I’m proud to report, I did remember to bring the address and code on my mobile phone. Just one problem. By the time the train pulled into Leicester at 2.30am, my phone battery was dead.
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