Anthony Drury, American Express Business Travel’s UK vice president & general manager, talks to ABTN about the outlook for 2012 and the TMC’s UK strategy
What trends are you seeing in business travel so far in 2012
There was a lot of speculation around the economy in the back end of last year but it was still a strong year in 2011. The biggest problem now is the unknown. I wish I had a crystal ball and could see what was going to happen this year – we are hoping for a steady year where the market stabilises.
A lot of customers are focused on policy and spend – we’re working to manage and control spend and that obviously brings spend down. We’re not seeing any travel bans despite the doom and gloom around the economy. People did stop travelling in 2009 but now I think companies realise they were not doing the right thing and are not going to make the same mistake twice.
Corporates are looking to spend on travel in the right places and want a good return on investment. We are seeing some of them trading down but others are trading up – it depends on what the customer is doing. People still have to travel to do business – withou fact-to-face meetings business doesn’t happen.
How did Amex fare globally last year and what contribution did your UK division make?
Our revenue was up by 12% in 2011 globally and – although we don’t break it down by market - the UK was a strong contributor to that. The UK was second or third largest market depending on whether you look at transactions, revenue or sales. It was a big contributor to us bouncing back to the levels we last saw in 2007.
What impact do you think the Olympics in London will have on business travel this year?
We have done forecasting around the Olympics to help customers and we are preparing ourselves for the impact of the Games. It’s somewhat of unknown but at least it is in the school holidays which is a quiet time of year for business travel. We think there may be a spike in activity both before and after the Olympics but it’s too early to tell.
Where will you be going with your mobile strategy in 2012?
This is one of our key focuses for this year. We are looking at issues such as policy compliance through the handset and putting control into the hands of the traveller. There are several phases of mobile roll-out which will take place globally this year.
Our mobile technology is built on security and visibility – access to the traveller is through a security suite. We have launched our MobileXtend platform (which gives travellers on-trip support and information including details of travel reservations and itineraries). But it’s not just about the handset, it’s about improving the traveller experience.
What sort of take-up have you seen for your mobile products by business travellers?
It’s not been as quick as we had expected but we know it will take off because it’s featured in every magazine and everybody is talking about it. We have been working with travel buyers on look at how we deploy mobile technology more effectively. But a mobile strategy is now a required element that corporates expect to be included – it is included in every RFP.
There has been a mixed bag in terms of penetration as every company has a different mobile strategy and we have to adapt it to every organisation. We looked at 100 travel policies and none of them addressed mobile which we found interesting. We think that companies have been so focused on macro issues in order to get travel costs down that they have not looked at issues such as security and mobile phones.
American Express has just signed a pan-European commercial deal with Easyjet – what benefits will this bring for travel buyers?
It’s a great step forward as it gives access to all of Easyjet’s content. Easyjet has had a change of strategy and wants to work with us on a B2B basis. It’s early days and we are working on the execution of plans in line with their initiatives. We think there will be a lot of demand on short and medium-haul routes as Easyjet is a viable competitor to the other airlines.
They could take a nice proportion of the corporate sector now they have changed their strategy. I’m sure all TMCs want to start talking to Easyjet because it should be good for all parties. Allocated seating (which Easyjet is planning to start trialling in the next few months) would also give travel managers the ability to look at Easyjet and know the content is being managed correctly.