Being a travel buyer has often been seen as a thankless task but there are signs that companies are beginning to realise the increasing importance of the role. Stanley Slaughter reports
ABTN well remembers a conversation several years ago with the press officer of a supermarket chain which now seems to have an outlet on every UK street corner. His company had, he confidently stated, no such thing as a “travel manager” and furthermore, he had no idea what such people did. His words expressed, albeit in extremis, a fairly widely-held view that travel managers were not particularly important people in an organisation.
It did not matter that they were in charge of what was often the second or third largest single item of the company’s spending; or that they facilitated the meetings which brought in business and secured jobs for the company; or that their skills in negotiation, organisation and innovation could save their company thousands - or perhaps hundreds of thousands - of pounds a year.
The determined focus by many companies on cutting costs further reduced the standing of travel professionals as the board level executives looked increasingly to procurement to bring their hard-nosed skills to the business of buying travel. It marked the defeat of the idea that travel was a service affecting human beings and the victory of the notion that it was just another commodity to be procured.
There are growing signs that this attitude to travel managers is now changing. At the autumn forum of ACTE/Management Solutions (UK) in London in September, Susan Hopley, managing director of The Data Exchange, spoke not of travel managers but of a developing trend of travel directors - people who would be on a similar level to HR or sales and marketing directors.
There was an opportunity, Hopley said, for travel professionals to play a bigger role in their company as promoters of travel as a form of investment and a way to grow the company.
More evidence arrived this week in Travel Policy Trends: ‘Control’ – What Does it Mean and Who Has It”, the third annual report by the GBTA Foundation, the research arm of the GBTA and Egencia, the corporate travel arm of online travel giant Expedia.
The report found that “travel professionals” were playing “an increasingly large and influential role in shaping and controlling business travel policy”.
Paul Tilstone, GBTA Europe’s managing director, pushed home the point by stating: “Travel professionals play a vital role in balancing the need to get travellers on the road to make the face-to-face connections that strengthen business ties while also spending corporate dollars wisely.
“This study shows travel managers are gaining more control over budgets to help contain costs and ensure that road warriors can be as effective as possible.”
These travel professionals saw the key indicators of their roles as being their part in controlling costs, setting procedures, driving compliance, ensuring the use of corporate booking tools and preferred suppliers, as well as motivating traveller behaviour rather than mandating it.
This feeling of control was more enhanced in Europe than in other regions of the world. The report said: “Compared to a few years ago, large majorities of travel professionals in Europe agree they now have more control over travel spend data (76 per cent), reporting (69 per cent), and visibility in the organisation (73 per cent).”
They gave as their reasons for more control: access to traveller profile information and data security (69 per cent); stronger support from C-level executives (65 per cent); and having a broader role in their company (63 per cent).
This last one seems perhaps the strongest indicator that travel managers are now being seen in a different light than a few years ago: not the person who just deals with the travel agency but people who play a vital role in the success of their company. This seems to be exactly what Susan Hopley was talking about at the forum.
Technology has played into the hands of travel managers by giving them far more data than was available a few years ago. This data helps them to pinpoint where money can be saved and where it can be spent for the benefit of the firm. Technology has also improved reporting which has enabled travel managers to identify “rogue” spending and deal with it.
But technology is just part of the armoury. A good travel manager is also a good motivator and communicator – skills which are invaluable to a company seeking to grow.
But the higher above the parapet you stick your head, the greater the risk. And there can be a risk in advocating increased travel – calculating the ROI (return on investment), for example, is notoriously difficult and not all trips will be a success.
However, the way does now seem to be open for travel professionals to play a bigger part not only within their own discipline but more broadly in the company itself. The GBTA/Egencia report suggests that many travel managers are beginning to grasp the opportunity with both hands.