As the British vocational education body City & Guilds expands around the world, the more it needs its travellers to go online. Alex Blyth reports
“The international element of our business is growing,” says Mat Willmore, facilities management service delivery manager at City & Guilds. “Two-thirds of our flights are now overseas. So, as our travel programme becomes more complex, it is critical that we make it as efficient as possible and achieve maximum value for money. That’s why our relationship with Portman Travel over the past 18 months has been so important.”
By 2012 it had been nearly five years since the travel management company (TMC) had been reviewed, so City & Guilds put together a shortlist of nine companies, and gradually whittled it down to Portman Travel. “We liked the fact they have the tools to help bring us into the world of online travel booking,” recalls Willmore. “Also, they gave us access to all our data, and offered good value for money.”
After the initial set-up phase, Andy Doughty, strategic national account manager at Portman, came on board. He has been with Portman for seven years having originally joined the firm when it acquired P&O Travel in 2006. He now manages around 20 accounts – he says he ensures the programmes run as smoothly as they should, and looks for additional ways the firm can add value to the relationship.
“For City & Guilds, the real focus so far has been on progressing travellers to an online system,” he says. “There were clear cost and compliance benefits but, as is always the case, we needed to convince many of the travellers who were used to booking through branches and were understandably sceptical about going online.”
THE HUMAN TOUCH
Both Willmore and Doughty agree that the turning point in the programme came with the ‘Meet Portman Day’ that they held around three months into the relationship. This was an event where the Portman team set up in a room and was available for anyone from City & Guilds to come and ask questions, test the new system, or raise concerns.
Doughty recalls: “It was a great opportunity for us to explain how the system works and address the issues that people had with it. For example, some people were concerned that they couldn’t see their frequent flyer points, so we directed them to the part of their profile where they are recorded. Others complained they couldn’t book specific seats online, so we could point out that the airline doesn’t allow it.”
He adds: “It also allowed us to talk to people who felt the online booking tool couldn’t cope with the complexity of their booking. We were able to let them know that we agree entirely and to direct them to the branch. In no sense is online booking mandatory – it’s purely there to make travel booking easier for all involved.”
Willmore agrees it was a useful event. “There were practical benefits. A few people brought genuine glitches we needed to solve, and we were able to deal with quite a few of the complaints by pointing out that they related to our previous consultancy – not Portman, I hasten to add,” he says.
“However, more than anything else, this event allowed City & Guilds executives to meet the Portman team face-to-face and to realise that they are not just here to claw money away from us. In fact, it had such an immediate effect that one of our executives brought in a box of chocolates to thank Portman for the help they had given on a particular booking.”
GENTLE PERSUASION
This one-off event has been supplemented with twice-weekly webinars and a programme of ongoing gentle persuasion. Willmore says it is great to be able to give all new joiners details of forthcoming webinars and know they will be fully trained on how to book travel.
He continues: “We don’t try to force people to use online or to comply with policy. It doesn’t work. Instead we highlight the benefits to them of doing so. For example, we send regular emails to travellers pointing out how much we have saved by increasing the proportion of hotel stays that are in our preferred chain, and then noting how much more could have been saved if all were in that chain.”
The end result has been that from zero just over a year ago, 86 per cent of travel is now booked online. On rail it is 98.7 per cent. Whereas in the past hotel stays were spread fairly evenly across a range of properties, now one-third of stays are in the preferred hotel. Rail spend has fallen by 14 per cent, hotel spend by 5 per cent and airline spend by 3 per cent.
A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
Those numbers tell a compelling story. The strategy of marrying an efficient online booking system to a transparent and persuasive communications programme has driven City & Guilds’ travellers online and saved the organisation significant sums of money.
It has prompted innovation elsewhere in the department, with Willmore investing in an in-house ticket printer. “Travellers love it,” he reports. “They can make last-minute changes to travel plans and just print their tickets on their way out through reception. We benefit from a reduced transaction fee, so the equipment paid for itself within the first year.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
Willmore and Doughty are now looking ahead to their next challenges. Willmore says: “City & Guilds has just acquired e-learning provider Kineo, a company that has always run a traditional travel booking programme. I expect that when we bring them into our online programme there will be some pushback, so we are planning another Meet Portman Day.”
Doughty adds: “We will be looking at the introduction of a payment card. City & Guilds has always used billback, which is a fairly time-consuming solution that tends to be fraught with problems. It’s not unusual for travellers to arrive at a far-flung hotel where billback has been clearly agreed in advance only for reception to demand a credit card.”
Willmore concludes that the relationship so far has given him and his colleagues confidence that they will be able to rise to these, and future issues, together. He says: “More than anything else we like the way Portman doesn’t just tell us what we want to hear. During the pitch process other TMCs made extravagant promises which, frankly, we found hard to believe. I look forward to working with Portman, with them challenging us to improve our travel programme even further.”
TEACHING THE WORLD
When City & Guilds was founded in 1878, managing the travel programme was probably a great deal simpler than it is today. Founded by 16 Livery Companies and the Corporation of the City of London, City & Guilds is now one of the largest providers of vocational training in the world.
Every year it has around two million people working towards one of its qualifications. There are more than 500 of those qualifications and they span 28 industries. Those learners use more than 10,000 centres and training providers in 80 countries around the world.
City & Guilds’ Mat Willmore joined the organisation three years ago, and has just one other person working for him in the travel management team. Between them they have to manage the travel of around 800 employees and a host of external verifiers, adjudicators, examiners and other consultants. Those travellers could be making their way between any of the nine UK offices or the 15 or so overseas locations, such as India, West Africa and Malaysia.