Business Travel Association Conference: Chairwoman urges sector ‘to work together Continued from page 56
under pressure to make your Ebitda (operating profit) margin. If you put two businesses together it’s easier to do that.” Stoakes noted “some big
deals done from the US this year”, citing TripActions’ acquisition of Reed & Mackay in May and TravelPerk’s purchase of Click Travel in July. He said: “The sector has
been through a really hard time, but if you’re a business with good tech it can be a seller’s market. When companies position themselves as tech businesses, not travel businesses, they can get higher investment.” Stoakes suggested: “If
Americans want to call themselves tech companies when they are really travel companies, and do deals for eye-watering amounts, it’s good news for business owners here.” He argued: “This is still
a very fragmented market. Business combinations are inevitable. It’s not going to be an instant bounce-back in business travel. [But] there will be a lot of businesses coming together to increase their scale and invest in technology. “Outsiders [to travel] are
looking in, seeing what has happened in leisure travel and thinking ‘We can replicate that in corporate travel. This is a sector with lots of people and processes. We can rip it up and use tech instead’. “But sometimes you just
need to speak to someone and the tech doesn’t always work. “Next year we’ll start to see
a pick-up. We need PE investors to be active to make bids competitive. So we need the banks to be lending.”
Aviation leaders say testing rules remain a barrier
Senior aviation figures hailed the relaxation of travel restrictions but described it as “well overdue”. Karen Smart, managing director
of Manchester Airport, told the BTA Conference: “We’re so out of kilter with domestic and international travel restrictions [and] testing remains a costly and unnecessary barrier for those vaccinated.” Liverpool Airport chief
executive John Irving said: “It’s still
confusing. We still need support. To forecast anything is impossible.” British Airways head of UK and
Ireland sales Luke Goggin agreed, saying: “Our network-planning guys used to forecast twice a year, now it’s every week.” EasyJet UK country manager Ali
Gayward emphasised the need for flexibility, saying: “It used to take easyJet about six months to get a new route on sale. Now it takes hours and that flexibility is going to remain.” Irving argued: “Financially it
has been incredibly difficult. The government let us down.” However, all agreed the situation
at UK borders had improved. Smart said: “No one has given Border
Karen Smart
Force a harder time than me. They worked hard over the summer to upgrade the e-gates so the Passenger Locator Form was linked to your passport. You should start to see a better border experience.” Irving agreed: “The performance at the border has been pretty good.”
US border reopening ‘is light at end of the tunnel’
Business Travel Association members greeted news of the US reopening to UK travellers with cheers and applause at their conference in Liverpool. BTA chief executive Clive Wratten
hailed confirmation of the border opening from November as “light at the end of a very dark tunnel”. Earlier, Wratten had
acknowledged the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of many in the sector. He confessed: “I had periods when I felt I just couldn’t find a way through. All we did was talk about Covid every day.” News of the US opening came
unexpectedly after Gareth Morgan, managing director of Cavendish Advocacy, which handles the BTA’s public affairs, described the US border reopening as “the biggest challenge”, telling members: “[Transport secretary] Grant Shapps is nowhere near the conversation on that.” Wratten told the conference:
54 30 SEPTEMBER 2021 Clive Wratten
“We can’t lose the momentum. The next piece is how we prove the value of meeting in person and the importance of using a travel management company [TMC]. “There is a misconception that
business travel is just people in suits going to meetings. It’s not. “We have to get on the front foot
on sustainability,” he added. “We have a big job in promoting
business travel and its importance, if done sustainably. The next few years
are going to be about rebuilding, [but] we need to get beyond Covid impacts.” He warned: “The impact of
Brexit has not come yet. The Cabinet Office is just working on the rules for business travel [and] we’re engaging with them on that. “Most importantly, we need our
members and partners. The industry needs to stop the civil wars that were going on.” Suzanne Horner, chief executive
of Gray Dawes Travel and chair of the BTA, took up the same theme. Without referring to the tensions over distribution between airlines, GDSs and TMCs, she said: “The traffic lights are slowly turning green. We must make sure no one gets ahead by making life difficult for others. We must work together as one and accept none of us owns the customer.” She compared the sector to how
“a relay team must pass the baton seamlessly to one another”.
travelweekly.co.uk
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