As BBT celebrates its 100th issue, Amon Cohen explores which topics and themes the magazine will be reporting on across the next 100 editions
The verbal bunting that’s been hung out to celebrate 100 issues of BBT is all well and good. But what, I hear you ask, will happen to the world of business travel by the time we reach issue 200 in the year 2036?
Search me, is the answer. Like many others, I abandoned punditry after a particularly bad run in 2016-2017 when I predicted the UK would vote to remain in the EU, Hillary Clinton would become the first woman president of the US and prime minister Theresa May (remember her?) would romp home with an increased parliamentary majority.
For what it’s worth, however, here’s what I reckon might happen. I’ve given each prediction an Amon’s Crystal Balls rating for how confident I am about my forecast. Feel free to disagree: by 2036 I will either be tending my onion patch at the local allotment or lying six feet beneath it, so I won’t be around for you to tell me I was wrong.
CRYSTAL BALL RATING GUIDE
At the end of each section you’ll find a probability rating between one and five. Put simply, the more balls you see, the more weight is given to the prediction. Dismiss these prognostications at your peril!
We’re going to have to confront the environmental damage caused by travel
In my very first According to Amon column back in May 2007, I said governments and businesses alike must take responsibility for reducing travel because it’s very hard for individuals to show that level of restraint.
That hasn’t happened. But I really believe it will soon. I recently moderated a client seminar for a TMC at which former head of MI5 Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said businesses need to curb their travel, and will increasingly face reputational damage if they don’t. She’s right. Looking at the recent Extinction Rebellion protests; it’s only a matter of time before environmentalists start calling out companies with high levels of travel-related emissions.
Campaigners will increasingly focus on aviation because it’s a growing polluter that is almost impossible to mitigate. According to a May 2019 report from the Committee on Climate Change, aviation counted for 8 per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2017, and business travel accounted for 20 per cent of aviation. The big problem is the volume of greenhouse gases caused by aviation has doubled since 1990, whereas other sources have stayed flat. By 2050, successful efforts to reduce those other sources mean aviation will be our number one or two polluter.
Offsetting is inadequate, and there are major doubts about the genuine sustainability of biofuels (although electric-powered aircraft for short distances are under development). Therefore, the committee says the UK government must look at taxation and other “measures to manage growth in demand”. In May, the Scottish government reversed previous plans to cut air passenger duty.
What does this mean for travel managers? In my view, it’s an opportunity, not a threat. As companies come under pressure to act much more seriously to reduce their business travel, travel managers will be the obvious candidates internally to lead this vital task.
Another of my many incorrect predictions over the years has been that I truly thought travel managers would evolve into interaction managers, responsible for facilitating non-face-to-face meetings (through video-conferencing, for example) as well as face-to-face ones.
Now that a climate emergency has been declared, the old wartime slogan “Is your journey really necessary?” takes on more resonance, and it will become travel managers’ role to ask that question, helping deliver virtual alternatives and shifting policy away from travel unless essential. Business travel won’t go away, but it’s a precious resource we will have to husband more responsibly.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 5/5
Travel managers will become micro-service architects
That’s a fancy term for a trend I identified a couple of issues ago. Travel managers will increasingly become technologists: curating, integrating and customising apps and other digital tools to build their own platform of services for travellers and other key stakeholders.
This new approach to travel management will also lead to a battle for control between corporate clients and travel service providers. Today, some of those providers operate closed systems: clients can integrate tools within the providers’ systems but cannot draw data out of them into other platforms. Expect more friction over this issue.
One reason travel managers will be able to spend more time on micro-service architecture is that they will need less time for sourcing. Flights and hotels are increasingly bought for the best price available and preferred supplier relationships are diminishing in importance. It’s a trend that could be accelerated by New Distribution Capability and artificial intelligence, both of which will help set prices presented to bookers on a case-by-case basis.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 4/5
The business travel industry will become less ‘Atlanto-centric’
Over the past 100 issues, the really big business travel suppliers and service providers have been overwhelmingly North American or Western European. The only major exceptions I can think of are the three giant Gulf carriers and Turkish Airlines. I reckon that will change by issue 200. China is the obvious candidate: perhaps existing players, such as Ctrip or Alipay, will become global players, or names that don’t exist yet. India also has many smart travel technologists who could make a splash.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 4/5
We will balance open booking and micro-management of travellers
Without doubt the most radical thinking in travel management since issue 1 has been the Google travel team’s open booking strategy. This allowed travellers to book what they wanted through any channel they wanted so long as they forwarded reservation info to a central database. Travellers were set price caps they couldn’t exceed. If they spent below a cap, they kept some of the savings.
Yet that idea launched a decade ago and failed to become the norm, perhaps because travel managers feared they would lose control. But too often control is largely illusory: travellers continue to book hotels outside the managed programme. What’s the answer? That’s still not clear – but non-compliant booking is like prostitution or drugs: they’re wrong but you will never stamp them out completely. Instead, you have to mitigate the harmful effects.
I believe more will be done to make official booking tools more attractive so travellers are less inclined to go elsewhere, while new ways will be found to capture data when they do stray, through better payment mechansims or blockchain, for example.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 3/5
PREDICTIONS PENDING
Stuff that was forecast to happen during the first 100 issues of BBT but hasn’t yet
New Distribution Capability
When I started writing about NDC I was still running around in short trousers, a thick mane of brown hair cascading about my shoulders. Well, not quite, but seven years on and bookings via this technology remain little more than a trickle. Surely NDC will take hold before we hit issue 200? That’s a 200-month window of opportunity that takes us into 2036.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 4/5
Traveller wellbeing
Talking about looking after traveller health is in vogue but I still don’t sense companies getting serious about tackling it. However, if businesses become more prudent about how much they travel, that should ease the strain on road warriors anyway.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 3/5
Strategic Meetings Management
Much proposed, rarely seen outside the pharma industry. I’m no longer convinced meetings will ever be controlled as tightly as transient travel.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 2/5
Death of the GDS
Though handling a smaller proportion of air bookings than when BBT started, GDS providers have found many other services to perform and are set to become part of the NDC transformation rather than casualties of it. But might their lunch yet be eaten by giant tech outsiders, such as Google?
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 2/5
Death of the TMC
From commission cuts to online travel agencies to the new booking tool/travel management “platforms”, TMCs have consistently proved resilient in the face of threats, and expert at reinvention. They’ll be around as long as business travel is.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 1/5
Abolition of Air Passenger Duty
With a climate emergency declared, this lengthy lobbying campaign is dead in the water. In fact, aviation now looks under-taxed.
Amon’s Crystal Balls: 1/5
It will never happen
It’s a big fat zero crystal balls that any of the following will ever materialise:
- Boris Johnson honouring his pledge to lie in front of bulldozers to stop them building Heathrow’s third runway. Now that he is prime minister, he is expected to nod the scheme through.
- Hotel companies deciding one brand each is enough.
- Michael O’Leary quitting Ryanair to run the Consumer Protection Association.
- A Transport Secretary who is both competent and stays in the job more than 12 months. The talented ones move on, which is why we had Chris Grayling for three years. His replacement, Grant Shapps, has his work cut out.