Amon Cohen ponders the potential impact of ‘Travel 2.0’ on the industry, and how adaptability will be the key to keeping on top of it all...
I recently learned that the German equivalent of the phrase “great minds think alike” is “Zwei idioten, ein Gedanke”, or “two idiots, one thought”. I rather like this diametrically opposed perspective to our own. Popularity doesn’t necessarily make something right: how else can you explain over 11 million people glued to The X Factor?
So let’s apply these contrasting attitudes to our own corporate travel industry. Many people, including me, have talked a great deal in 2012 about what is variously known as ‘Travel 2.0’, ‘consumerisation’ or ‘open booking’. This is the idea that travellers will demand more flexibility in how and what they book, which means employers will have to radically loosen travel policies and find new ways to track and manage their spend. If lots of us are discussing this vision, does that make us great minds – or idiots?
No, I don’t know either. A couple of comprehensive surveys I have seen recently show most travel managers are deeply sceptical about the suggestion they should get down with the kids in their workforce by allowing them to use their own booking tools and choose their own suppliers. I even saw a suggestion from one disgruntled buyer that Travel 2.0 is simply a myth concocted by a well-known travel technology company to ring up more sales.
That’s going too far, but I have some sympathy with buyers who fear that talking up the issue may create a problem that does not currently exist for them. Many report continuing strong policy compliance and few signs of insurrection among travellers. Yet other travel managers I talk to confirm smartphones and tablets are making employees more independent, and indeed expert, organisers of their own travel. These buyers are considering adapting their travel programmes around the changing needs of the traveller to ensure the corporation still gets what it wants – primarily cost-control and duty of care management.
There appear to be two key aspects to successful adaptation. The first is to shift from a reliance on heavy policy mandates towards influencing travellers to do the right thing. That means critically scrutinising the travel programme to ensure it really is, to use a phrase beloved of pompous government ministers, fit for purpose. Once satisfied the programme truly meets travellers’ needs, buyers find ways to sell it dynamically to travellers: using messages and prompts at point of booking or sending mobile texts while on a trip urging employees to choose preferred suppliers.
Communication has always been a key part of the job description for travel managers, but now it is moving up a gear – one major corporation I know has made communication skills the top priority in its travel team recruitment process.
The second way travel managers are adapting is through technology. This time last year I predicted that aggregating management information from different data sources would become a key issue in 2012. That has indeed started to happen. Since then, various intermediaries have launched tools for travel managers to capture reservations data even if travellers have not booked through their official TMC or online booking platform.
I suggested in the same column that expense management companies looked the best positioned to provide data aggregation, and indeed both KDS and Concur have proved to be pioneers of the technology with their Maverick and Open Booking tools respectively. Even if an employee books directly on, say, the British Airways website, they can capture the data for the travel manager. Another tool worth looking at is Trip Link, from a US company called GDSX. It aggregates booking data if – although it’s a big if – travellers forward their email booking confirmations.
I’ve also written before about Google travel manager Michael Tangney, the first travel manager to move to a programme resembling Travel 2.0. Speaking at the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Europe conference in Budapest in September, Tangney said these emerging technologies will prove critical in the move towards more open travel management. “There is a wave of change. There is a lot of technology emerging,” he said. “No one has the whole solution yet, but over the next 12 months there will be a solution.” Great minds or idiots, choose which you want, but this is an issue we should all keep thinking about.
ONE GERMAN WORD WE USE in English is schadenfreude, and how appropriate its origin given the extraordinary cock-up over the new Berlin airport. Already several months late, the scheduled opening of the airport on June 3 this year was postponed with just a few weeks to go after someone mercifully noticed the fire safety system was not (sorry about this) fit for purpose. Amazingly, the oversight means Berlin-Brandenburg Airport now won’t open until October 2013.
No doubt a few British aviation executives and government officials are taking pleasure in the misfortune of their supposedly more efficient Teutonic counterparts. I’m not sure how valid any national stereotypes are, but that won’t stop me pointing one out myself, which is that we in the UK can be world-class whingers. Maybe now that even the Germans have got a large-scale transport infrastructure project so badly wrong, we will feel prouder of what we do achieve here. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 had some terrible delays when it opened (on time), but they were only teething troubles. Now it works brilliantly. Likewise, St Pancras is excellent for Eurostar and the new transport links for the Olympics succeeded fantastically, too. In fact, I hope the Olympics made us realise that we build well in the UK. Less carping in future, please.
I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE choose occupations which fit their surnames, like the famous Twickenham undertakers Wake and Paine. I was, therefore, immensely gratified to read that the pilot who presents BA’s new instruction video to reassure nervous flyers is one Captain Steve Allright. We have several similar examples in my domestic world. My wife’s GP is Dr Scull and the man who supplies our firewood is – no word of a lie – Mr Treloggin.