'Now is the best time to be a travel manager'
Travel managers and suppliers must become partners again to help the industry out of its current crisis, Kevin Maguire, president of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) said.
He said: "Suppliers and buyers used to work together in this industry. They don't anymore."
He said it was part of a travel manager's job to work with suppliers to come up with realistic ideas that drive business.
Mr Maguire, speaking on "The Future of Business Travel" at the Business Travel Show in London today (February 11), said the industry was going through a culture change.
In a year when oil prices had gone "crazy", airlines were charging $10 for a pillow and $3 for a drink.
"I am not convinced this is the way for airlines to make a profit. The survivors will be the strongest and the most productive, like Air France, Lufthansa and Delta.
"We are seeing the way they are doing things differently. They are changing their culture.
"Airlines need to step back and remember who their clients are," Mr Maguire said.
He said fuel surcharges and other "unrealistic" charges needed to be re-structured.
Hotels also needed to step back and see where the economy now is.
But for travel managers, it was a time of growing influence, "the optimum time to have a travel programme" and the "best time to get control of your programme and make your customers happy."
Mr Maguire, who is a travel manager for Texas University, said a travel manager who could not make savings and keep his travellers satisfied was not doing his job.
He said travel managers had never been under such close a scrutiny as now.
"You have to be very, very careful now with the way money is spent. The culture is changing. You have the decision to be part of this and call for better solutions or be part of the past," he said.
Mr Maguire said technology would replace some travel but never all of it. There would always be the need for personal contact and face to face meetings.
"If you make a blanket decision to cut all travel, you will be cutting off your nose to spite your face," he said.
"But you have to ask how important a meeting is, how vital is it to the success of your company and how does it affect the traveller."
He said that without a travel policy that is strict and clear, travel managers will accomplish nothing. "That is the change in culture," he said.
He added: "Now is the time for a managed travel programme, now is our time as travel managers.
"Now is the time for people to look at this industry honestly. We have problems but we have far more solutions out there that we have not yet touched. The responsibility for this falls on you."
He said it was the moment to tighten travel policies and to minimise the "entertainment" part of T&E.
He called for a two pronged approach. First a new partnership with the government and "not an adversarial one that make no sense to the suppliers."
Secondly there should be partnerships at grass root levels between TMCS and travel managers.
"We need to develop lines of communications to discuss problems, concerns and solutions. If we don't do this at this level, we are going nowhere," he said.
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