BTN Europe Week in Review

With airline revenues decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic, it would seem that investment in rolling out IATA's New Distribution Capability (NDC) has come to a standstill. 

A Sabre executive recently said that "the vast majority of airlines have paused or completely stopped their NDC activity".  

Certainly, there has seemed to be little public activity around NDC. But is that really the case?  Has Covid derailed NDC or has it spurred airlines and intermediaries into working harder behind the scenes to make it a reality?

IATA recently held its Business Travel summit and NDC developments mentioned there show that things have moved apace. Many airlines have also announced new NDC-powered initiatives. 

On the latest episode of the Week in Review podcast, regular host Mark Frary is joined by Claudia Adams of Allianz , Lydie Charpin of Amadeus, Aman Pourkarimi of Gray Dawes Group and  Paul Tilstone of Festive Road.

They discuss GDS strategies around NDC, the version 21.3 standard coming in September and whether corporates really are seeing the benefits.

Last week, the UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps announced a change to the entry regulations for England, meaning that anyone who has completed a full course of vaccinations against Covid will now be allowed to enter the country without having to self-isolate.

Yet business travel has been on its knees for 15 months and even this reopening comes with barriers. We have heard again this week that another TMC has ceased trading. Is it all too little, too late for the sector.

We discuss the implications of the UK Government's decision for business travel with Cilla Goldberger of ABT UK and the Focus Travel Partnership and Clive Wratten of the Business Travel Association along with regular host Mark Frary.

Our experts look at whether the cost of testing will still dissuade business travellers, whether the end of furlough is going to cause a cliff-edge and more businesses in the sector will fail and how long the sector will take to recover. Our panellists also share their sense of optimism for the future despite the challenges.

The Covid crisis has brought the question of how your bookings should be serviced under greater scrutiny. Regularly changing regulations and border closures now mean that many bookings now require some hand-holding in a way they did not before.

Recent years have seen many corporates shift their programme from offline to online in order to drive savings but has that now been reversed?

The rise of online travel management platforms has also led corporates to question whether there should be a gap between online and offline transaction fees.

The question of online vs offline is discussed by our expert panel of Adrian Witschi, global lead travel, expense and card programs at Mondelez International, Carlos Delatorre,  chief revenue officer of TripActions, David Bishop, chief commercial officer of Gray Dawes Travel and Leigh Cowlishaw, global supplier partnership director of the Advantage Travel Partnership.  

Business travel has been decimated over the past 15 months but that hasn’t stopped some companies from changing their travel management company. Indeed, some corporates have taken the time when things have been quieter to rethink their relationship with their incumbent TMC.

The pandemic has also seen some TMCs fail, others to look shaky and more to consolidate, causing their clients to have to think about a new TMC. 

In the latest edition of our Week in Review podcast we talk about what is causing corporates to look at their TMC relationship and whether the pandemic means that they are looking for different things from their travel provider.

Our panel of experts - Katie Virtue of Festive Road, David Bishop of Gray Dawes Travel, Jean-Michel Kadaner of Areka Consulting and Chris Vik of TripActions along with regular host Mark Frary - talk about what is making corporates go to market.

The panel discusses transaction fees, the financial viability of TMCs, why only 15-20 per cent of corporates change TMC after an RFP and the role of technology in making and preventing corporates from switching.

Despite, or is it because of, Covid, the corporate focus on sustainability has continued. Barely a day passes without someone in the business travel sector announcing a new sustainability initiative – whether that’s a new commitment to sustainable aviation fuels, a TMC announcing that it has set up a new carbon offset scheme or a corporate saying that business travel is going to be replaced with video-conferencing in order for it to meet its strategic net zero targets.

Just recently, we have heard that sustainability is going to be a core focus for broadcaster ITV as it has awarded a multi-year travel contract to ATPI. Meanwhile, Amex GBT has announced a tie-up with Shell Aviation to aggregate the buying power of its corporate clients.

We have also seen oil and gas companies taken to task by governments and shareholders on their own emissions.

In our latest podcast, host Mark Frary talks to Francesca Mendola of the Global Travel Collection, Adam Knights of ATPI, Daniel Tallos of Nike and Paul Tilstone of Festive Road to discuss how corporates can work with the supply chain to meet sustainability goals.`

The panel discusses the role of TMCs, what KPIs corporates need to be setting, demand management and whether offsetting and SAFs are the answer.

The Covid pandemic has caused a crisis in the TMC sector. The decimation of business travel and the lack of any real signs of when things will return to some form of normality has meant that many TMCs have failed – companies like Horncastle Executive with long proud histories went to the wall.

Ever since the start of the pandemic it has seemed inevitable that there would be a wave of consolidation as owners and investors wanted to cash out of an industry that may take years to recover and, indeed, may never do so.

In the past few weeks we have seen Amex GBT buying Egencia and old school Reed & Mackay being bought by new kid on the block TripActions.

In our latest podcast espide this week, we discuss whether this is the beginning of a new wave of consolidation and what buyers and sellers of TMCs might be looking for.

We look at why TMCs need to sell, how much they can expect to get when they do and whether today's big name TMCs will still be around int he face of well-funded comeptition from digital upstarts.

The podcast features Julia Lo Bue-Said of the Advantage Travel Partnership, David Bishop of Gray Dawes Group, Steve Allen of the Firebird Partnership and Jean-Michel Kadaner of Areka Consulting, along with regular host Mark Frary.

Bill Gates has said that 50 per cent of business travel would go following the pandemic, but he would say that, wouldn't he? His company Microsoft has a very powerful alternative to business travel in teams, after all.

Yet many companies have used the virtual standstill of business travel due to Covid to take stock of what parts of business travel are essential. You could argue that many businesses have survived well enough without travelling at all.

Companies are now having to focus more closely on what types of business travel will be allowed to come back. Will training and internal meetings be forced to go virtual and is that a good thing? Are the days of day trips numbered?

The cost of a trip, whether that is in terms of pounds, planet or people, is going to be increasingly under scrutiny in the future and travel managers will need to educate bookers and travellers about just how their business travel fits into the organisation's overall strategy.

Join EY's Karen Hutchings, Nike's Daniel Tallos, Gray Dawes' David Bishop and Festive Road's Paul Tilstone with regular host Mark Frary to hear what the shape of future business travel will be.

Many countries and companies have set a target of making zero carbon emissions. Some are already there while others expect to get there at some point between now and 2050. Some have done so by investing in carbon offsetting schemes while others have made concrete efforts to rethink their operations to remove carbon dioxide from the process.

For the companies that have committed to cutting carbon, business travel is often in their sights, particularly after the Covid pandemic showed that many meetings could take place using video-conferencing technologies like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

This week we have heard how the French government wants to ban some domestic short-haul flights while two airlines - United Airlines and Lufthansa Group - have launched sustainable aviation fuel programmes for corporates.

This podcast features Daniel Tallos, EMEA travel manager of Nike, Karen Hutchings, global head of travel, meetings & events at EY and Pascal Jungfer, CEO and co-founder of Areka Consulting – talk about how travel programmes can reach net zero.

We discuss carbon offsetting programmes, nudge behaviour, setting relevant baselines and whether TMCs and online booking tools can help travellers make the right choices.

In the UK, more than 30 million people have been vaccinated; in Norway, the number is just 800,000. Yet there are two ends to any business trip so even if everyone in the UK is vaccinated it does not mean that other countries will be ready to welcome them.

Governmental approaches to business travel also vary. In some, business travel is considered an exemption to restrictions on travel; in others, business travellers are advised to stay at home.

The European Union – built on the idea of freedom of movement – has temporarily put that aside. Some countries are allowing those from other EU countries to enter while others are not.

It is a very fragmented picture and will affect how quickly business travel recovers.

This podcast features Niklas Andreen of CWT, Lotten Fowler of the Swedish Business Travel Association, Pascal Jungfer of Areka Consulting and Clive Wratten of the Business Travel Association in the UK along with regular host Mark Frary.

One of the biggest issues in the travel sector since the start of the pandemic has been the thorny issue of refunds.

When global travel was effectively stopped, the industry had to work out what to do about the tickets that had already been paid for. Companies and individuals had paid out billions of euros, pounds and dollars on tickets that would no longer be used. 

Where did that money sit? Could you get it back and within what timescale? Some airlines said they wouldn’t give money back but only issue vouchers. Some in the industry faced an existential crisis because of the refund demands.

The repercussions of the decisions made at that time are still playing out in the sector.

The German Business Travel Association (VDR) has been calling for airlines to only take payment at the moment of departure in order to resolve the issue. Lufthansa has now made changes to its Pay-as-you-F|ly scheme for corporates to allow this. Will other airlines follow suit?

The discussion features Christoph Carnier, president of the VDR, Guillaume Bizet of Areka Consulting and David Bishop of Gray Dawes Group along with regular host Mark Frary.