O N T O U R: Business Travel Show
The annual Business Travel Show at London's Olympia took place last week amongst darkening shadows for the international world travel industry. We all remember too well what happened when the last war in the Middle East took place. The industry needed perhaps three years to recover. This time around we are all trying to make progress from 11 September, and not very successfully.
So you would have thought that Olympia was all doom and gloom. Not so. The show was busy and active although from a major news angle all quiet, with the exception of Qantas who took the opportunity to display their new business class product for the first time, the semi-bed traditional style seat not due to go online until September. It looks very promising, a well thought out and put together attractive combination of the best the other airlines have come up with to date. Regular travellers can fly Oneworld to Oz return and go one way BA and back QF, and then decide. There were 270 exhibitors, easily the best to date, and representing all aspects of the industry, from the major international airlines, through the big hotel groups, to the much smaller specialists in a great variety of different areas. The budget airlines were not represented, except for FlyBe, promoting its Birmingham and Southampton hubs.
A record 7,000 plus visitors trouped through the expanded area in the Victorian monstrosity that calls itself an exhibition hall. Whilst main line and Underground access is in theory available nobody in Transport for London has got their act together in making use of what is available. Did you know that Gatwick is linked by train to Olympia? Olympia (knocked down and re-built) could be a wonderful site but there are rumours of a move next year to Earls Court, which at least is on the ”Tube” to Heathrow and easily accessible from the centre of town.
One aspect of the show that attracts an ever increasing audience is a conference programme spread over the three days Adam White, managing director of Business Travel Management, led off by asking. "Are you getting the best fares? With the entire industry holding its breath and praying there will not be a war, driving down expenditure has to be the main concern." British Airways head of worldwide sales, Dale Moss spoke at a question time debate and said that in competition with the no frills carriers the full service providers had been sluggish in their reaction allowing the low cost airlines to brainwash the public into believing that they were always cheaper. Other speakers spoke on reducing hotel bills, budget airline benefits and cutting costs on consortium booking. Again and again the emphasis was on keeping the outlay to a minimum. Just like their leisure market contemporaries who are using the so-called no frills carriers in greater and greater numbers, the business traveller needs to hold down his costs. He still has to travel in order to generate business, hence the interest that the show generates (and with its Hong Kong and Manchester cousins). Paul Robin, Exhibition Director, Centaur Exhibitions, helped Tom Watson, MP and Parliamentary Consultant for the Guild of British Travel Agents to open the show. www.businesstravelshow.com