BBT’s Travel Buyer of the Year Award- winner for 2017, Royal Mail’s Kevin Swindells, points out a key part of being a good communicator means listening. “Myself and the team take feedback from our travellers seriously,” he says. “And always make sure any feedback received is evaluated thoroughly, and any potential for improvements in the programme is addressed promptly.”
And teamwork is another important part of the job: “Having good ideas is one thing, but having a supportive team that can deliver solutions against those ideas is the most rewarding part of the role,” says Swindells.
An oft-quoted piece of invaluable advice
is to have “a thick skin” – because changes will always meet with resistance.
Tom Stone, founder and managing director of travel management consultancy Sirius, says: “If you look back 20 or 25 years ago, the travel manager’s function was maybe 80 per cent operational and 20 per cent
strategic. Now that’s flipped completely. Travel management company account managers have got a lot better, and nowa- days they do most of the operational stuff, leaving the travel manager to focus almost exclusively on strategy.
“I think that has mutated even further.
For a long time, travel managers sat under, or alongside, procurement people and, again, that’s changed. Travel managers have developed core procurement skills – and those on the procurement side have become much better at ‘travel’. Travel managers today are working on the entire company travel programme, calling on procurement expertise only as and when they need it.” Stone readily acknowledges that none of this is universally true – no two corporates are the same, and every travel programme and policy has its own nuances – but he suggests there is more change still to come. “Travel policies have become much more fluid, largely because the travellers them- selves have access to much more informa- tion, and they know how to use it,” he says.
“The overwhelming majority of travellers want to be good corporate citizens, and they are asking why they should spend more money than they need to. “When I turn on my TV, I have immedi- ate access to multiple channels, and to the programme schedules. I don’t have to consult the Radio Times and TV Times to find out what’s on, and I certainly don’t have to phone somebody to ask them to read the schedules to me – but that’s what ‘travel’ used to be like.” Most of the better travel policies now
have a ‘best buy’ element to them, in that if a traveller can find a less expensive or more cost-effective option – and, frequently, they can – there has to be a very good reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to take it. That heralds another shift in the travel manager’s role. Having moved from an operational function to a strategic one, and acquired far greater procurement skills, the job entails a much higher degree of com- munications and social media expertise. If the traveller can find an alternative travel option, the travel manager needs to
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