On July 3, senior travel buyers attended the inaugural Irish BBT Forum at Dublin’s Ballsbridge Hotel.
They debated a range of issues around policy and compliance, and discussed how expense and payment technologies can support their programmes.
The event was hosted in partnership with ACTE, and was sponsored by Lufthansa, HRS, London City Airport and the Ballsbridge Hotel.
Buyers were urged to engage with their companies’ administration networks – where they would find a lot of support in communicating the travel policy to all travellers.
They were also advised to involve travellers in the process of shaping the policy, as the workforce was more likely to comply with one they had helped create – but there were differences of opinion as to what extent, and where lines should be drawn in enforcing company rules. Delegates also disagreed on whether ownership of the travel policy should be within HR, procurement or finance departments.
Buyers agreed that optimising channels of communication was key to driving an effective travel policy, and that the role of a ‘travel buyer’ was as much about selling the travel programme to travellers and stakeholders, as it is about buying. They were also advised to get direct support from their CFO, and establish clear lines of approval for authorising out-of-policy bookings.
Buyers whose companies allow booking via direct channels talked about using itinerary management tools such as CWT’s Worldmate and Concur’s Tripit to capture management information, but said the challenge is aggregating data from diverse sources.
Lufthansa UK & Ireland director Christian Schindler spoke about the fast-changing landscape of airline ticketing, ancillaries and distribution, and answered delegates’ questions about the impact of NDC (new distribution capability) on corporate travel programmes.
Jon West, London managing director at HRS, talked about the potential power of data. He cited banking software that can predict precisely when a customer will close an account before he/she has even made that decision, and customer science specialist Dunnhumby, whose customer buying habit predictions for Tesco based on individual shopper profiles grow ever more accurate.
The group discussed how this type of predictive data analysis could help travel buying, including calculating optimum advanced booking times – playing suppliers at their own dynamic pricing game.
The forum looked at payment technologies. Travel buyers quizzed providers on a range of issues including virtual and mobile payments, acceptance, VAT recovery, fees and exchange rates, reconciliation and reporting.
• The next BBT Forum is taking place in London on October 3, 2014. Find more information and request tickets here
londoncityairport.com
lufthansa.com/uk/en
hrs.com
ballsbridgehotel.com
acte.org