American Express Global Business Travel is calling for world
leaders gathering at June’s G7 summit to support the swift return of
international travel, and for the UK and US to establish a “safe and seamless”
travel corridor between the two nations at the earliest possibility.
Discussing the global travel taskforce’s recent proposals for the return of international travel to and from the UK, the
TMC’s chief commercial officer, Drew Crawley, told BTN Europe: “We have
been talking in detail with the cabinet office around the G7 meeting so that
they are properly informed [about the significance of business travel] and put
it on the agenda. There’s huge pent-up demand for travel… and we're not
certain that there's any other institution or gathering that is more
appropriate [to support it] than that.”
Crawley
added: “What we've been proposing for a while is that the G7 summit is a great
opportunity for the prime minister to lead the restart of international travel,
probably in partnership with the US, and bring together the learnings and
protocols that can be used as a template for the overall restart of travel
internationally.”
Given the high vaccination rates
of the two countries, Crawley is confident the US will be on the UK’s new green
list – which could allow travel between the two nations from 17 May providing
the US lifts its own restrictions – and said the corridor should be treated as
testbed for new processes around digital health certificates, “none of which
have been proved at scale”.
“The
volumes are manageable and it would not be such a shock to the system as
opening up large chunks of Europe. I think it will be more manageable and we'll
be able to learn more. It should be the first cab off the rank,” said Crawley.
The UK will host the G7 Summit from
11 to 13 June in Carbis Bay, Cornwall (top) and will welcome leaders of the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany,
France and Italy, as well as
guest nations Australia,
India, South Korea and South Africa.
In
contrast to some industry organisations, Crawley is broadly supportive of the
GTT’s proposals, despite the lack of detail.
“We
like the framework and we think it’s sensible. We're all a bit impatient, but I
can see why they haven't populated it yet. There will be a lot more known
between now and 17 May and I think it [the green list] will hopefully surprise
people.”
Passengers
travelling to/from countries on the green list will not be required to enter
self-isolation on their return but will need to take a PCR test in addition to a
pre-departure test.
“The
green standard is not too onerous,” said Crawley, “but we believe strongly that
in the UK, the prices that were being charged [for PCR tests] are not
competitive with the prices customers were being charged elsewhere.”
He
described the ‘green watchlist’ – a device to warn of a country’s potential
move from green to amber status – as a “practical addition to try and avoid the
pandemonium that was created last year when people were given 12 or 24 hours’
notice and got stuck in the turmoil”.
“All
of these things are new and will be fine-tuned as we go. I’m absolutely sure of
that, but I think conceptually it's better than not having it.”
Ahead
of more details being released, Crawley said the government must now work in
the background to establish digital health certificates from trusted sources
that are mutually recognised by governments.
“They're
the pieces of work we think government should be working on. A lot of it can be
done by the industry, but some of those bits can only be done by government.
And that's what we're expecting that they're talking about with their
counterparts across the water in the US as we speak.
“How
these travel tech platforms will work, how they'll get Covid health
certificates digitally formatted in a way that's trusted and mutually recognised
by the governments… those are the things they do need to be working on. That's
where it will be critical,” said Crawley.
“What
we don't want to happen is that when the starting gun is fired all the planning
and preparation that we believe is necessary around these decisions hasn't been
done. I'd like to think they are working on those things as part of the
announcements on 17 May. That will be when we express disappointment if there
isn't more progress being made on those.”
The
TMC, which is currently trading at 17 to 18 per cent of 2019 levels, says
domestic travel has returned to near-normal levels in China, is seeing “a
strong pace” of recovery within the US, and anticipates rapid growth in
international travel when permissible. “We've got customers who will want to
get on an aeroplane the very next day,” said Crawley.
A recent customer survey conducted by GBT showed 70 per cent of companies
expect to have ‘meaningful’ volumes of business travel return by the third
quarter of 2021.
“The
US-UK will be the big international engine room for the first few months, then
towards the middle to the end of summer, you'll see the domestic recoveries in
French and German markets,” says Crawley. “And then probably about the same
time, you'll see them – and other key European markets – open up for
international travel.”