ABTN speaks to David Chapple, event director for the Business Travel and Meetings Show about preparations for the 2012 event and what he hopes to achieve with his recent appointment to the ITM board.
How long has the Business Travel and Meetings Show (BTMS) been running?
The show is now going into its 18th year. It started off at the old Wembley, it was there for one year, then we moved to the Business Design Centre, then to Olympia and finally to Earl’s Court – 2012 will be the sixth year there.
It’s been a regular fixture in the calendar every single February since 1994.World Travel Market has been going for a long long time, but the Business Travel Show, as it was then, was the first of its kind, specifically targeting the corporate market. In 2010 we added Meetings to the title. The show reflects the ups and downs of the business travel industry, which has had a bit of a knock over the last couple of years and now it is on the way back up again, as indeed is the show.
The show in the last couple of years has attracted between 140 and 150 exhibitors. We’ll probably see a slight increase on that this year. I don’t know yet where we’ll end up in terms of actual physical numbers of exhibitors, but it will match the depth and breadth of the industry. We’ll have a diverse and comprehensive range of exhibitors from all sections of the travel and meetings industries.
You must be starting preparations in earnest for next year...
For the last five months or so we’ve been looking at the 2011 event, held in February at Earl’s Court, to see what worked, what we can do in terms of making improvements, and also what new things we’re going to add to the event. We pull the whole thing apart, which is quite an epic task in itself for such a large event, but is vital to see how we can improve, add and make changes.
What plans can you reveal?
At the moment we’ve got firm plans to include a new technology feature at the show. We’ve seen over the years that here has been an interest in this from visitors, especially in self booking tools, data management and expense management solutions. So, we’re putting in a specific area within the show to increase the number of exhibitors in that field. It will be located on the crossover point between BTMS and the Travel Technology Europe show, which is held simultaneously at Earl’s Court. A lot of the suppliers in that market place not only serve the corporate audience, but also the TMC and the travel agency audience, which is one of the core audiences for Travel Technology Europe.
One of the other areas we’re looking to increase is the meetings side of things. We haven’t quite finalised what we’re doing yet, but we hope to be making some announcements soon. It’s about expanding the meetings content at the show, as it is widely recognised that the meetings industry and the business travel communities are converging, especially in the strategic meetings management sectors, and with meetings alternatives like videoconferencing and telepresence. Procurement is driving that, in terms of looking at cost savings, consolidation and supplies.
And how are preparations for the European Hosted Buyer Programme going?
The programme was launched last year,as an extension of the exec programme, which replaced our VIP programme three years ago. The European Hosted Buyer Programme we’re expanding through our exclusive partnership with GBTA Europe. They have over 2,500 members across their network and we’ll be working with them to invite their members to the show in February.
Hosted buyers will get complimentary flights and accommodation, and a complete networking offer that will start on the Monday night at our European Travel Buyer Awards. They will have appointments with exhibitors of their choice and there will be a full education programme for them as well.
We’re looking at a couple of other things for the buyers, after doing some research with that particular group. We have identified a few areas where we could improve our networking and education offer. One is to create more peer to peer opportunities for the buyers – birds of a feather type groups. That could be things like travel buyers from the legal fraternity or travel buyers who are responsible for a global travel programme, or who have a specific interest in travel repatriation from war zones. Quite niche stuff, but with an audience of 5,000 there’s going to be half a dozen to a dozen people who will have that kind of interest or need.
Our buyer audience are quite sophisticated. Offering them the mainstream how to improve compliance or how to do an RFP, or how to find a new TMC is pretty much old hat to some people. They’re looking for more peer to peer bespoke solutions and that’s what we’re looking to provide in the February show.
What are the next stages in preparing for the show. What will be happening over the next couple of months?
We’ll be fleshing out some of these ideas and actually see them come to fruition. We’ll start promoting the hosted programme in September. For the education programme, we’re already briefing somebody about the content.
When do you start setting up at the venue?
We have an operations department that does that. There’s a team of four or five of them that put the show together. They are at the venue the Saturday before the event and working with all the contractors and exhibitors to make sure it all comes together and then I turn up at 8am on the Tuesday morning and it’s all done.
How long does it take to pull it all down?
Not long! The show will close at 5pm on the Wednesday and if you wander around the show at 7pm that evening you will hardly recognise it. It’s like it was never there. It’s quite frightening, really – four days to put it up and four hours to take it down.
What is it about the business travel industry and running a trade show that interests you?
When I started out with the business travel industry, I was an exhibition organiser. I’ve now been working in exhibitions for 17 years, and I’ve been in travel for 13. As an exhibition organiser, you’re one of two things: a member of the exhibition community or a member of the community that you serve. I would very much see myself as the latter, as a member of the business travel community.
I like it because it changes so much. The people are great. It’s a very community-orientated industry – once you’re in travel you’re always in travel. It throws up all sorts of challenges and changes a lot. It’s constantly evolving. For example, planes now are very different to the ones we flew 13 years ago, and also the way companies manage their travel is much more sophisticated than it was.
You’ve recently been announced as a board member for ITM http://www.abtn.co.uk/news/1316023-itm-announces-new-directors...
Yes. I love this industry so much that I applied to be on the board and am pleased to say I was succesful.
What do you hope to achieve with your work for ITM?
ITM has lots of different working groups. I’m not sure which ones I will contribute to as yet, but I would like to see that the art of good travel management is spread a lot further and wider than it is. Large brands often have it all sewn up, but when you get down to the mid and small-sized organisations, they still think the internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Spreading the word a little bit more about how small things can help them same significant time or money, or add value to them as an organisation and their travellers, would be something I would quite like to do.
Do you think events such as BTMS are an important part of the business travel industry?
One of the great things about trade shows is that it is about meeting people face to face, shaking hands and looking them in the eye. Travel is a relationship driven industry and the relationship between the buyer and the supplier is important. BTMS has 5,000 attendees, which gives people in the travel industry a great opportunity once a year to get together.
There are a growing number of events in the business travel sector, which many say is a positive sign for the industry as it shows growth. Why should people come to BTMS over your competitors?
That’s an easy question to answer. From our research and understanding, a visitor wants a comprehensive and diverse range of suppliers to meet. That’s not just the major brands, it’s also the smaller, innovative companies. BTMS delivers all of those.
Visitors also want a comprehensive and cutting edge education programme where there’s great content, case studies and not the usual suspects speaking. Every single year BTMS delivers that.
The third part of what visitors want is great networking opportunities. We don’t want to just have great parties and a good drink in a bar, which do deliver, but also the serious side. That’s something we’re looking to develop more. Everybody likes to have a good time, but to justify time out of the office they need to get more value out of their participation to take back to their businesses and travel programmes.
I don’t think that there is any other event out there that delivers all those things in the way BTMS does. They say that they do, but if you look underneath the bonnet, you’ll see that our Ferrari is a Ferrari engine, and their perceived Ferrari is actually a mini Metro engine. It looks good on the outside, but look inside and there is really no comparison between us and any of our competitors, both in the UK and the rest of Europe.