The Business Travel Mag September/October

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September/October 2022

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RFPs are back

Five steps to carbon reduction Talking Travel with Andy Murray for more news and views go to thebusinesstravelmag.com

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Business travel that works for you and the planet Every single trip is carbon off-set Choose Eco Black Cabs, PHVs, eScooters or eBikes Dedicated Co2 reporting for your business

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UP FRONT

Contents

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 Features

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50

12 Ask the Expert: RFPs are back, says Stuart Tandy, Agiito

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Head of Bid Management, as he answers the key questions

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42 Talking Travel: Andy Murray takes centre court in our

Extended feature:

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celebrity spot to share his travel experiences, tips, faves,

SMEs SME

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First back to travel and still leading the way, SMEs now face a fresh set of challenges. See our report

(p19-40)

pet hates and more 44 Carbon Reduction: We ask sustainability experts to help

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us put together a five-step guide to cutting the carbon footprint of business travel

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Up Front 6

Opening Shots: The most exciting openings in the world of travel – in pictures

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Everyone's Talking About: The economic headwinds

10 Speaking Out: Liz Emmott at TrainLine outlines the barriers that must be overcome to put

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rail at the centre of business travel decision making

News 14 A report from the 2022 GBTA Convention plus other news, views, appointments and events

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Departures 48 Reality Check: We check in to

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three hotels and take the night train 50 Final Word: A lighter look at

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all things travel

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UP FRONT

Welcome The little things

I

n just a few days' time many of us will be getting together to celebrate the 2022 Business Travel People Awards and, thanks to the support of our fantastic sponsors and the high number of attendees, we'll all be sitting down to a three-course dinner this time.

Like many industry events, the format of the awards had to be adapted in the last few years, going from virtual in 2020 to bowl food in 2021. But, like most aspects of our lives, things are pretty much back to normal now.

When business travel started to come back, it was smaller and mediumsized businesses who led the way and many in our industry - TMCs, airlines, hotels, rail companies and The Business Travel Magazine included – will be forever grateful that SME travellers were brave enough to take those first few steps and get the wheels turning again. That's why we've devoted 22 pages to the 'small but powerful' in this issue, exploring the specific challenges they face and the many solutions out there designed to help them manage their travel programmes, protect their travellers, meet their sustainability goals, control their budgets and so on.

On page 44, we've enlisted the help of experts to come up with a five-step guide to cutting your carbon footprint, whatever your size, including some extra little tips to share with your travellers that will make a difference. On page 12, Stuart Tandy, Head of Bid Management at Agiito, gives the lowdown on RFPs, which are now also coming back, while on page 42 we talk travel with tennis champ Andy Murray.

There's lots more to read on our website, thebusinesstravelmag.com, and in our Wednesday newsletter, where we will be announcing the winners of the 2022 People Awards the day after the September 13th ceremony. I can't wait to see you there!

EDITORIAL EDITOR

Bev Fearis CONTRIBUTORS

Dave Richardson, Gill Upton, Julie Baxter & Angela Sara West DIGITAL EDITOR

April Waterston

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Steve Hartridge

ADVERTISING SALES PUBLISHER / COMMERCIAL HEAD

Kirsty Hicks

DESIGN & PRODUCTION DESIGNERS

Matt Bonner and Caitlan Francis PRODUCTION & STUDIO MANAGER

Clare Hunter

PRODUCTION ADMINISTRATOR

Steve Hunter

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Matt Bonner CEO

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ARRIVALS oPenIng shots

Eye-catching images of the latest news and developments

Amira Restaurant, whose name pays homage to the women who have enriched the culinary culture of the city, delights diners with dishes made from local products, with creative twists ”

Marriott Barranquilla

gooD taste

Coffee rituals and rum tasting give guests a local flavour at this new Marriott hotel in the vibrant city of Barranquilla, known as the 'Golden Gate of Colombia'. Warm wood tones in the 200 rooms reflect the tropical dry forest setting. There's also an outdoor pool, ballroom and Next Gen Meeting Spaces.

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TRIBE London Canary Wharf

tribal living

Radisson Blu Vadistanbul

forest bathE

Guests can choose from city or forest views at the renovated and rebranded Raddison Blu, nestled in the foothills of Vadistanbul Park in this smart residential district of Istanbul. As well as its 193 stylish rooms, the hotel has a gym and spa with a heated pool, Turkish bath, steam bath, hammam, sauna and five treatment rooms.

A 24-hour ‘Social Hub’ is at the centre of TRIBE London Canary Wharf, the first UK venture for this fast-expanding Australian brand which promises 'intelligent, functional, designdriven' hotels. This one has 320 rooms, a Californian-inspired restaurant – Feels Like June – and an oval bar with an outside terrace.

The Greenhouse Hotel

Ice hotel

Just 30 minutes from Reykjavik and an hour from Iceland's Kefelavik International Airport, this design-led boutique hotel is sustainability focused with BREEAM certification. It has 50 bedrooms, a lively food hall, ice cream parlour, and a lounge where guests can enjoy weekly entertainment.

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UP FRONT hot topic

Everyone's talking about... the economic headwinds So many factors are currently influencing business travel, including the financial pressures. It’s a

“To understand the headwinds that have been impacting a more accelerated recovery for global business travel, all you have to do is look at the news headlines since the beginning of 2022” Suzanne Neufang, GBTA CEO

“It is crucial that the EU continues to monitor the impact of inflation on the cost of living – Europe must do everything within its power to ensure that travel does not become inaccessible for the average European” Luís Araújo, European Travel Commission President

changing landscape for sure. There’s a ‘travel less but travel better’ pattern emerging, maximising travel budgets with longer, more productive trips Guy Snelgar, Advantage Travel Partnership Global Business Travel Director

The current cost of living crisis is not just impacting the public, businesses particularly SMEs - are and will struggle too”

Matthew Bassant, FREE NOW For Business Global Head of B2B Country Marketing

Having lost so many of our staff through the pandemic, the present cost of living crisis means that there’s now even more pressure on us to demonstrate the employee value proposition of working in corporate travel if we are to attract the right people Paul Tilstone, Festive Road Managing Partner

“In these moments of change – the pandemic, the Great Resignation and inflation – the impacts are very real, and global business travellers are feeling and experiencing them directly” Charlie Sultan, Concur Travel President

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UP FRONT SPEAKING OUT

RAIL DISTRIBUTION

STATUS QUO Three major barriers prevent rail from reaching its full business travel potential, says Liz Emmott, TrainLine's Director of Global Distribution and Business Solutions

There’s no getting away from the fact that the corporate rail landscape is complex and fragmented. While major progress has been made in developing new rail services and enhancing the traveller experience, the impact on travel distributors is that aggregating the right data has become significantly harder. Translating it into easy, accessible offers has become challenging to say the least.

All too often, technology barriers impact effective distribution of rail travel, meaning business travellers are less likely to select train journeys despite their growing preference for more sustainable modes of transport. This is a status quo that cannot be allowed to continue. Overwhelming evidence shows that business travellers want to reduce their historical reliance on air and road travel and they expect to be offered rail alternatives.

The business travel market is an area of huge potential, with high-value customers who are increasingly required to consider sustainability as a factor. Research shows demand for rail is growing, with six in 10 business travellers more likely to consider rail than pre-pandemic. As many as threequarters indicated that they want to actively reduce their reliance on air travel because

of the impact it has on the environment.

If the industry is to capitalise on this once in a generation opportunity to grow, travel distribution needs to adapt, and quickly. For me, there are three major challenges for the industry to overcome to put rail at the centre of business travel decision making:

Historic complexity

While headway has been made, the fact remains that there are too many barriers that prevent business travellers from being offered consistent, real-time access to rail routes. It doesn’t need to be this way.

The most progressive sellers are seizing the opportunity to select distribution partners that can cut through the complexity to enhance the way they sell rail travel, making it a more compelling offer for customers. Only by taking an open approach to distribution can we eradicate the complexities that threaten to stymy the growth of business rail.

stakeholders does not promote new, innovative approaches to distribution.

By working more closely together, all stakeholders can increase travel volume and, in the process, bring enhancements to the customer experience.

Discussing, identifying and troubleshooting challenges in distributing rail travel is the fastest way to fix them. And it doesn't mean that distributors lose their competitive differentiators. The old adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats” really rings true here.

International barriers

The untapped market for international rail travel is vast and it presents complexity and collaboration challenges on an even grander scale. When industry players recognise and embrace the opportunity, it brings into clearer focus the need to integrate with international partners.

Any travel distributor that wants to be able to serve the changing needs of customers needs to break down the barriers or risk being left behind by more agile competitors.

Reworking rail distribution isn’t an easy fix.

It won’t be an overnight revolution. But if travel distributors can make incremental changes to how we sell rail travel as an industry, there is a vast opportunity ahead.

And it’s an opportunity that benefits everyone: travel distributors, rail operators, business travellers, their employers – and, most importantly, the planet.

Fragmentation

A mindset shift is required to drive greater industry collaboration. Too frequently the fragmented landscape of technical and commercial agreements between various

LIZ EMMOTT Liz Emmott is Director of Global Distribution and Business Solutions for Trainline.

She joined from Amadeus in August 2021 and previously worked for American Express Global Business Travel. thetrainline.com

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ASK the expert

Stuart Tandy, Head of Bid Management at Agiito

The return of RFPS

Are RFPs now coming back?

RFPs didn’t completely stop for us during the pandemic but there was a significant slowdown. For those that did initially continue, decisions tended to get postponed as organisations utilised the Government's furlough scheme, prioritised activity and redeployed staffing resource where required and, in some cases, made the difficult decision to make redundancies and restructure their business.

But in recent weeks we have seen a notable increase in organisations issuing RFPs. Some organisations that perhaps have more defined procurement policies governing contract timeframes are issuing formal RFPs while others are clearly conducting a more informal market review, maybe unsure as to whether now is a good time to change suppliers but wanting to see what’s out there.

Is now a good time to do an RFP?

Yes, there are a number of reasons. Firstly, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the industry with widespread restructuring and redundancies. Service levels may have taken a hit as organisations ramp up their business travel return. So ‘noise’ around service levels could be deemed a reason to go to market, but it should be noted that this is likely an industry-wide issue and shouldn’t necessarily be used in isolation as a reason to do an RFP. That said, many organisations will have come out of the pandemic looking very different. Some will perhaps have more remote workers or a more open attitude to home-working, or maybe a greater focus on employee wellbeing has seen a policy change on when people can or should travel on business and when to connect virtually.

All of this may mean that their travel spend profile has significantly changed and would suggest it might be a good time for them to go to market.

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What are the key differences you are seeing post-pandemic?

In the past employee wellbeing and sustainability were covered to some extent in RFP questioning but post pandemic there seems to be a greater focus, and hence a greater weighting within the decisionmaking process, on these two areas.

The workforce demographic has changed with Millennials and Gen Z now making up a significant proportion of most organisations’ employees. Both groups care deeply about protecting the environment so it’s no great surprise that sustainability is high on the corporate procurement agenda.

Organisations recognise their people want to see them take proactive action on environmental commitments, contribute to

RFPs require a lot of time and effort and some organisations will have limited resource to manage more than a handful of major procurement RFPs per year” addressing climate change and drive social value from their supply chain.

Traveller safety and security has always been a key consideration but organisations are now recognising that general employee welfare is hugely important as well. They recognise that their duty of care extends beyond their safety to protecting them from the medium to long term impacts of excessive business travel.

For example ‘road warriors’ can suffer burnout, so some organisations are looking for reporting to go way beyond standard transactional and spend data and include wellbeing reporting, identifying those ‘at risk’ travellers so they can advise line managers to be able to intervene.

As well as addressing duty of care, this approach makes business sense as the longer-term impacts of excessive travel has a knock-on effect on absenteeism as well as recruitment and training costs.

Are you seeing a change in commercial models?

I think there is definitely a recognition from most buyers that a hybrid model is perhaps more appropriate with booking fees for any transactional elements and a management fee payable for account management projects and activity, rather than rolling up any account management costs into a transaction fee model.

During the pandemic lockdown we were still working with many customers providing advice and helping develop policy but many of those customers were not actually travelling so the typical transaction fee model was not sustainable.

What are the main RFP pain points?

RFPs require a lot of time and effort and some organisations will have limited resource to manage more than a handful of major procurement RFPs per year. So, when it comes to dealing with the time pressures of RFPs, the best place to start is finding tools that best fit your sourcing events.

Search for tools that streamline the sourcing process instead of adding unnecessary steps or questions and don’t think the choice is between the leading-edge sourcing app or a Word doc, there are plenty of other options in between.

Another potential pain point for buyers is that RFP submissions might be inconsistent.

Ultimately, you can’t fully control how suppliers will respond to your RFP and no matter how well you’ve designed and drafted your RFP, it’s inevitable that bidders will want to answer it their own way.

Some of the sourcing apps and tender portals will help address this inconsistency

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ASK the expert

by applying templates but it’s worth giving bidders some flexibility to be able to tell their story and demonstrate their value proposition.

What are the biggest RFP frustrations for TMCs?

A lack of any willingness to engage or have any kind of dialogue throughout the procurement process is a big frustration.

Another is the unrealistically short submission timeframes followed by months of radio silence from prospective customers, as well as inappropriate template formats such as Excel which don’t allow for any kind of creativity or visual representation. Having inappropriate word or character count limitations imposed for sometimes complex, far-reaching questions are also frustrating.

However, for me, the biggest frustration is when no, or very limited, data is shared regarding the current travel spend profile.

This data is essential to understand the complexity of a client’s travel requirement and how we might resource to service it adequately and provide a meaningful pricing proposal. Information about hotels booked in key locations, air city pairs, rail booking horizons, travel class etc all help us to propose a robust, deliverable savings plan. Without data, we simply revert to service capabilities and standards and experiences rather than what we might be able to deliver in real, bottom-line savings.

perception is that price is the sole key consideration, irrespective of any statements in the RFP to the contrary.

On the supplier side, there are some fantastic content management systems available which can help index boilerplate content, search archived bids, enable good governance and apply a rigorous audit of bid content review and sign-off.

What are the limitations of an RFP?

The purpose of the process is merely to get to a shortlist of potential suppliers that have demonstrated they understand the prospective customers’ business and sector, their values, the challenges they are looking to overcome and their short, medium and long-term goals. What it doesn’t do is tell you what the people you will be working with are like. The mantra ‘people buy people’ still holds true and meeting suppliers either faceto-face at a site visit or a shortlist presentation, looking into their eyes and asking yourself “Can I work with these people?” should not be under-estimated.

Is price the main consideration?

It's always going to be a key consideration but any commitment to a defined plan delivering bottom-line savings on an organisation’s annual travel spend far outweigh any likely negotiated transaction fee savings. Other criteria also play a huge part in the decision making when choosing

the perfect travel management partner, such as sustainability, wellbeing and duty of care, aligned values, service, reporting, account management and innovation.

What are the key questions?

Buyers need to move away from capabilityled questioning and focus on questions that ask a bidder how they are going to address key challenges, solve problems and meet core objectives. For example, don’t just ask a bidder about their management information reporting capability, ask what value it will deliver to your organisation.

This approach will mean that bidders need to demonstrate that they understand you and your business and articulate their value proposition better. This will make it it easier for you to differentiate between them.

What's your advice for SMEs doing an RFP for the first time?

Do your research on the market and seek advice from your peers. Perhaps reach out to other procurement people via LinkedIn for guidance and also speak with potential bidders as part of the procurement process.

Don’t just create an RFP and send it out without any engagement. It’s also important to involve relevant internal stakeholders in the process to gain buy-in and help develop a defined specification of what they want from their supplier and what they want to achieve from the RFP process.

How can technology help?

There’s a variety of technology applications out there to help buyers such as tender portals – websites that streamline and manage the whole RFP process including pre-qualification, non-disclosure agreements, online questionnaires and messaging. Also, the pandemic lockdown has meant that people have got more used to connecting virtually and using video-call technology such as MS Teams and WebEx which can be great when looking to engage with a wide and varied stakeholder group for a shortlist presentation rather than trying to coordinate diaries and get everyone in the same room.

Some buyers use e-auction technology but in my experience they simply don’t work in travel unless bidders are working to a very strictly defined scope. The minute a prospective customer tells us that the process will include an e-auction, the

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europe and us will lead recovery wESTERN EUROPE and North America are set to experience the sharpest recoveries in business travel, according to the GBTA's 2022 Business Travel Index Outlook – Annual Global Report and Forecast.

North America, which led the post-Covid recovery driven largely by rapidly returning domestic travel, is expected to experience the steepest climb with compound annual growth increases of 23.4% to $363.7 billion by 2026.

Western Europe, the only region to witness spending declines as Covid-19 impacted its domestic and regional business travel market, is forecast to experience an increase of 16.9% in spend to $323.9 billion.

Globally, business travel spend is forecast to reach prepandemic levels of $1.4 trillion in mid-2026.

MEETINGS management platform, TROOP, has partnered with Spotnana, the cloud-based tech specialist, to offer travel and meetings booking capabilities.

Available later this year, the integration means clients will be able to plan meetings and then seamlessly transition to booking flights, hotels, car rentals and rail tickets inside TROOP’s user interface, powered by Spotnana.

TROOP Founder and Co-CEO, Dennis Vilovic, said the expansion of services was due to demand coming from existing customers.

united looKs Beyond discounted fAres with new plAtform UNITED AIRLINES is launching a new platform enabling corporate customers to customise their contracts and not just focus on flight discounts.

United for Business Blueprint will be available in late 2022 and will allow corporates to request higher status in United’s loyalty programmes, more spacious seats in Economy Plus, Wi-Fi access, or other incentives like discounts on leisure travel for employees.

[ convention neWs bites ] >> TRIPBAM has introduced a new bundled service, TRIPBAM Enterprise, offering all of its air and hotel rate reshopping, auditing, benchmarking and sourcing >> AMEX GBT is launching a range of solutions to help minimise travel friction, such as constantly monitoring travellers’ trips and contacting them as soon as a trip is delayed >> GBTA has confirmed that its 2023 Convention will take place in Dallas, Texas, on August 13-15 >> CORPORATE TRAVEL MANAGEMENT (CTM) has launched proprietary AI and machine learning capabilities in its online booking tool, Lightning >> RESIDE, the global provider of alternative accommodation, has relaunched its cloud-based booking platform, 3Sixty, with new functionality >>

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“We want to do for group and meetings travel what online booking tools did for transient travel, dramatically reducing the time and tedium spent on booking.

"Building on Spotnana’s cloud-based infrastructure has enabled us to rapidly deliver a richer, more comprehensive solution to our customers."

Both companies are backed by Madrona Venture Group, which led TROOP’s $8million Series A funding round in late 2021 and participated in Spotnana's recent $75 million Series B funding round.

84%

- confident travel spend will increase in 2023

According to a GBTA poll of 44 senior global corporate finance professionals and budget decision makers, carried out in July, 84% voiced confidence that their travel spending would somewhat or significantly increase in 2023 compared with 2022.

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when the going gets tough

Agiito hAs Begun A pilot of its new solution designed to help BooKers of simple meetings And events. cAlled meetingspro, it gives rAtes And venue AvAilABility in reAl time

Frequent flyers will quit the gym, not trips THE HIGHER cost of living is not deterring frequent flyers from travelling, according to a survey of more than 3,700 frequent flyer members of Collinson's Priority Pass.

The research found 62% of members would rather cut back on other non-essential retail purchases than reduce their travel budgets. Nearly a third (30%) are prepared to give up restaurants, a quarter their gym membership, and over fifth (21%) their streaming services.

Members are also very likely to pay for other premium travel experiences, such as upgraded seats (43%) or direct flights (39%) and are planning to make eight return trips on average in the next 12 months – nearly back to the average of 10 trips made pre-pandemic in 2019.

The summer of 2022 seems as if crises have come along like London buses – two at a time.

The business travel sector saw a boom post the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions.

Face-to-face meetings, events and travelling for work once again became part of the fabric of our daily lives.

Just as this became the 'renewed normal', airports and trainlines were ground if not to a halt, then to an unhelpful service level.

The introduction of Heathrow’s 100,000 passenger cap, its extension and re-extension has wreaked havoc for our industry. The fledgling confidence of business travellers was dampened by soaring flight costs, cancellations and the risk of extensive queues.

Mostly this was not the case, helped in part by the cap, but Heathrow must now pay back its customers by increasing the cap on a weekly basis as we invest in its return to full service.

Anything less is a blatant betrayal of all travellers.

On top of the airport woes, businesses of all

sizes are dealing with domestic travel issues.

With Avanti dramatically reducing its schedule, connectivity across the UK has never been worse. As with Heathrow, we are asking Avanti to scale its schedule as quickly as possible.

Conversations around travel have centred around holidays, which is perfectly understandable for August but we’re now going into September and it’s not just children who are experiencing a 'back to school' feeling.

The infrastructure of our sector must recognise this is a vital time for people travelling for work. There are new energy projects that need to be delivered, water pipes that need to be fixed and roads that need to be mended. That’s just phase one in addressing our cost of living crisis.

On top of this, everyday Brits, working for SMEs, large corporations or working on a freelance basis, need to get around, travel and work without additional headaches imposed on them by the companies meant to enable global Britain.

clive wratten Chief Executive Officer

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Igniting that flame There are currently, and quite rightly, a lot of conversations in business travel around how we can attract new and future talent into our industry.

This has always been an interesting challenge but is now even more pertinent given the resourcing issues we see in various sectors.

Different approaches can be explored and we often seem to focus on two in particular; partnering with education establishments and apprenticeships. Both are worthy initiatives but require careful thought and execution if they are to generate positive outcomes.

The first challenge may even be to establish what those achievable positive outcomes are.

In order to connect with college and university students we need to be sure we have the right audience, with the right story to share and, most importantly, a path for them to actually get a role.

But just a minute, I have asked many dozens of people in the industry if they ever aspired to work in business travel during their student days and not

scott Davies Chief Executive

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one says they did. So, I’m not entirely sure this is our silver bullet after all.

That’s not to say, however, we shouldn’t try to inspire young people to join our dynamic and extraordinary industry.

For my part, I would like to ask every person who has enjoyed some level of success in business travel (including all ITM members) to make a promise to go back to their own school of choice and ask for 20-30 minutes to share how their work life played out and fulfilled them.

If we all did that, we might each light a flame within just a few people and the collective result could be immense.

With that spark we then need to guide these individuals to the great employers that they can choose from. TMC job pages would be an ideal place to start.

Now there’s a thought.

That would mean that every single one of us is responsible for finding the future talent of the business travel industry.

Your industry needs you.

Are you doing enough?

Business travel can raise your profile MEETING new people is the main benefit (30%) of business travel but it’s also important for building relationships and raising an individual’s profile in an organisation.

According to a survey of 500 business travellers, conducted

by Opinium and commissioned by World Travel Protection, 25% say travel provides an opportunity to take part in higher profile work, 26% say it offers informal time with colleagues to build relationships and 24% say it raises their profile in the organisation.

Travelling for business is also an opportunity to do new and more enriching work (27%), do work they might not otherwise have done (24%), and also spend individual face-time with important people in an organisation (21%).

[ neWs bites ] >> YOUR TRAVEL CORPORATE, part of The Your Travel Group, has joined the Advantage Travel Partnership >> FLYBE, which relaunched in April, has announced a winter schedule with 12 destinations including additional routes and frequencies from Birmingham to Belfast City Airport and Belfast City Airport to East Midlands >> IAG, parent of British Airways and Aer Lingus, has signed a deal with Aemetis to supply sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to help power both airlines’ flights from San Francisco Airport from 2025 >> BCD TRAVEL has received the Platinum rating from EcoVadis, the provider of business sustainability ratings, for the third year in a row >> CHOICE HOTELS has completed the acquisition of Radisson Hotels Americas for around $675m >>

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THE NEWS REVIEW

t h e b u s i n e s s t r a v e l m a g . c o m

BTA joins travel aware campaign THE BTA has joined the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)’s Travel Aware campaign, a campaign that has been running since 2014 and aims to increase confidence in travel.

The BTA will provide the FCDO with key information about business travel to include in its campaign and will also promote the FCDO’s global travel advice to its members.

BTA CEO Clive Wratten said: “Providing insight into business travel needs adds a vital dimension to the previously leisure-led campaign from the FCDO. Our members and partners will now be able to provide business travellers with clear information ahead of travelling internationally for work."

Tripactions bags unilever account TRIPACTIONS has been selected

by London-based consumer goods giant Unilever to handle its global travel programme.

A joint announcement from the technology-led TMC and the Fortune 500 company said Unilever “sought a new partner for global corporate travel after determining that its existing solution was not a future fit for its workforce or model of work”.

After a year-long process evaluating a number of TMCs, Unilever chose TripActions to support its future-fit vision for travel management and technology, said the statement.

Unilever has 148,000 employees in 77 countries across 400 brands.

Other big European wins for TripActions include Heineken, SumUp and Primark.

IN BRIEF Good connections

Finnair has launched direct flights from Helsinki to Mumbai with services timed for easy connections with schedules from Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin.

The route will initially operate three times a week, increasing to four times weekly from November.

Solar hotel

virgin Atlantic has unveiled retreat suites, its most spacious suites yet, on its new A330-900 NEOS as part of a multimillion dollar fleet upgrade

Premier Inn to open all-electric hotel wORK has begun on the first ‘all-electric’ Premier Inn hotel, built without a connection to a natural gas supply.

The five-storey 195-bedroom hotel in Swindon Town Centre, scheduled to open in late 2023, will be fully heated and powered by grid energy generated from renewable sources and by on-site photovoltaic cells.

Alex Flach, UK Development Director for Premier Inn's parent Whitbread, said: “If we are to achieve our target of becoming a net zero business by 2040 we need to find a replacement for natural gas across our estate.

"The new all-electric Premier Inn is designed to give us everything we need to run an operationally successful hotel.

It's a bold and necessary proof of concept which has the potential to inform the specification of our new-build hotels."

Travelodge has opened its most sustainable hotel – the new-build 350-room London Docklands Travelodge, certified by BREAM and with solar panels on the roof, air source heat pumps and electric vehicle charging points.

Quick learner

Global Secure Accreditation (GSA) has released a quick and simple online survey to help companies get to grips with ISO 31030 travel risk management in less than five minutes after research showed more than half of travel bookers, buyers and managers know little about the new standard.

All change

BCD Travel will leverage FairFly’s technology and AI to power its Air Price Assurance (APA) solution, making it available across its entire client base.

The tool predicts when fare changes will occur and automatically cancels and rebooks tickets at lower rates, helping to save time and generate savings up to 4.8% of overall air spend.

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THE NEWS REVIEW

O N

T H E

M O V E

EVENTS KATE ERSKINE

TREVOR JOHNSON

MARK WILSON

JOINS: Equinox Travel AS: Chief Operating Officer FROM: The Appointment Group (TAG)

PROMOTED AT: Diversity Travel TO: Head of Diversity Study Trips FROM: Senior Business Partner

JOINS: Global Travel Management AS: Marketing Director FROM: The Digital Zebra

Former TAG Director Trevor Johnson has been appointed Chief Operating Officer for Equinox Travel, a specialist in travel for the music and entertainment sector.

Kate Erskine, who joined Diversity Travel in October 2021 as Senior Business Partner, has been promoted to lead the company's Academic Student Groups provision.

Mark Wilson, who has worked with Global Travel Management for many years as a marketing and PR consultant, has joined the TMC's Board as its first ever Marketing Director.

SEPTEMBER 13 2022

BUSINESS TRAVEL PEOPLE AWARDS Leonardo Royal London City Hotel thebusinesstravelpeopleawards.com

SEPTEMBER 26-27 2022

BTA CONFERENCE Belfast thebta.org.uk

OCTOBER 3 2022

ITM AUTUMN CONFERENCE Grand Connaught Rooms itm.org.uk

BRUCE HANNA

MICHÈLE LAWLEY

JASON DUNDERDALE

PROMOTED AT: BCD Travel TO: President Europe FROM: Senior Vice President Europe

JOINS: TripStax AS: Chief Operating Officer FROM: YAPTA

JOINS: Blacklane AS: Global Head of Agency & Indirect Sales FROM: FREE NOW For Business

BCD Travel has promoted Michèle Lawley to the position of President Europe, based in London, taking over from current European President Mike Walley.

TripStax has appointed Bruce Hanna, who previously worked for Travelport, ACTE and YAPTA, to the newly-created role of Chief Operating Officer, to lead its next expansion phase.

Jason Dunderdale, previously Head of Sales Europe for FREE NOW For Business, joins chauffeur-drive specialist Blacklane as Global Head of Agency and Indirect Sales.

OCTOBER 3 2022

DINNER CLUB Corinthia Hotel, London thebusinesstravelmag.com

NOVEMBER 8-10 2022

GBTA EUROPE CONFERENCE

ALSO ON THE MOVE... >> Festive Road has made three US-based appointments. Traci Aultman, previously Senior Manager of Global Travel at RELX, and Sean Melchionno, formerly with Staples in a Senior Analyst role, both join as Travel Category Analysts and Jackie Visnic, previously with American Express Global Business Travel, has been appointed as Hotel Category Analyst >> TravelPerk has boosted its senior leadership team with two new Europe-based appointments. Sally Sourbron becomes Chief People Officer and Roy Hefer joins as Chief Financial Officer >> FREE NOW For Business, the Mobility super app, has appointed Valentin Naidja as Vice President Sales, following the departure of Head of Sales Europe, Jason Dunderdale (see above) >>

Square Convention Centre, Brussels europeconference.gbta.org

DECEMBER 5 2022

CHRISTMAS DINNER CLUB Corinthia Hotel, London thebusinesstravelmag.com

AUGUST 13-16 2023

EXPE RTS AT TA L E NT R ECR U I T M E NT, D E VELOP M E NT A ND R E T E NT I O N.

Dedicated to the business travel sector.

GBTA CONVENTION Dallas, Texas gbta.org

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SME SPECIAL : small but powerful Having led the return to travel, small and medium sized businesses are now firmly on the radar of suppliers, TMCs and technology providers ready to help them navigate a new set of challenges. Read our special report...

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SMEs / Introduction

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Introduction / SMEs

Back to

BASICS After an initial surge in demand, SMEs are regaining control of their travel budgets and approval processes in a changed world, says Gill Upton

A

s restrictions began to lift in January it was no surprise to witness a rush back to travel for those SMEs keen to replenish their business pipelines.

Six months on, however, and that race to see customers and colleagues again, with

scant regard to travel policy, pre-approvals and budget caps, has faltered as the cost-ofliving crisis has taken hold.

Flight prices have risen by 20% and hotels by nearer 25%, reinforcing the message that travel needs tighter management if travellers are to continue with face-to-face meetings.

“They’re saying, ‘Crikey, we’ve already spent this year’s budget’; we’re getting a bit of a reset to put back in tighter approvals,” says Adam Knights, Regional Managing Director Europe and Middle East for ATPI. "The historic practices are coming back in.”

Julie Oliver, CEO Europe at Reed & Mackay, 

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SMEs / Introduction

says current high demand and reduced availability “is driving a renewed cost focus".

Flexible travel policies are disappearing and TMCs are being asked to provide their traditional panoply of services and products, from account management and data analytics to uncover non-compliant travellers and savings opportunities, to revising policies and approval processes, mitigating travel risk, setting budget caps and switching on online booking tools as confidence grows.

“The initial spike post pandemic has settled down a little now and we’re receiving more RFIs,“ says Leanne Fowler, Agiito Director of Account Management. She says the most common requests the TMC has received over the last two months have been to increase the cap rates and to look at tightening the approval process.



Travel, also reports brisk SME business.

“We're still seeing that initial surge continuing and we’re up 15-20% in sales volume compared with levels in 2019."

Amex GBT’s earnings report for Q2 2022 saw SME transaction recovery in June reach 84% of 2019 levels, while overall transactions reached 76%.

Buyers are keen to buy more TMC services in order to gain control of their spend.

Agiito’s Fowler cites taxis, visas, car hire and car parking. “They want to consolidate it all into the OBT to have greater visibility of the booking,” she says.

New buyers are entering the fray from the unmanaged space, keen to capture leakage, manage disruption and mitigate risk. ”They want to understand their profile and spend and want to jump on an online system if anything goes wrong so they can track their travellers,” says Agiito’s Fowler.

Paul Tilstone, Partner Festive Road, says the consultancy is being approached by SMEs who have grown to a point where they need to get a handle on their spend.

"We're seeing SMEs with high rates of growth coming to us and wanting us to help them reset their strategy and help them think about their purpose. Their DNA may have changed and they need to take a step back and establish where does face-to-face bring real value to their business," he says.

Cost control

The priority now is to go back to basics.

“The travel eco system we’ve returned to looks very different,” says ITM CEO Scott Davies. “A lot of buyers are talking about methodologies for calculating savings.”

His concern is that rising costs may throttle the number of trips and suppress travel. “Increasingly conversations are taking place on the ROI of a meeting; it’s



Numbers up

We're saying to our clients that if they want to keep the same people on their TMC team, we need to put prices up, otherwise we will have to lose people” 22

Donna Joines, General Manager of SME specialist Corporate Traveller UK, says the world of travel has changed "and so have some of the concerns and challenges that clients face, from increased costs, less choice and more emphasis on duty of care resonating with many".

But despite the concerns, she says the TMC is back to 100% of pre-Covid travel “with our clients travelling more than ever”.

Nick Pratt, Head of Sales at Blue Cube

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Untitled

Find out more: scan QR code

Letting you know what we’re up to…

It’s no wonder ATPI have been rated as one of the best service-led travel agencies.

Direct ATPI

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Thanks for emailing Direct ATPI today! Please rate your service from Matthew.

Direct ATPI

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istockphoto.com / conceptualmotion

SMEs / Introduction

 a tricky balance, particularly as the SME has less help and more responsibilities.”

SME travellers rely heavily on their TMC partners, which is a massive opportunity for TMCs to simplify the complex, but they are also having to deal with their own realities: near-empty coffers, recruitment challenges and more complex, labour-intensive and time-intensive travel bookings.

“Much more handholding is required now,” says ITM’s Davies.

Clive Wratten, CEO of BTA, admits TMC service is "still not where we want it to be" but insists: "It’s a short to mid-term issue."

Many employees haven’t travelled for three years and need to re-familiarise themselves with how to use online booking

tools and to be shown best practice again.

ATPI’s Knights says the TMC is spending time re-implementing tools and re-training new customer admin staff who joined since the pandemic.

“We have treated it like an introduction rather than implementation of the services and tech we offer,” adds Nicola Cox, Director Midas Travel.

Agiito’s Fowler agrees. “We’re doing a lot of education around OBTs so travellers understand lead times and the optimum time to travel.”

There are other changes in the relationship with customers, says Reed & Mackay’s Oliver. “We are realising that we need to look at different ways of engaging with customers. We look for multiple touchpoints within the companies, whether in HR, sustainability, compliance etc.”

Increasingly conversations are taking place on the ROI of a meeting: it's a tricky balance, particularly as the SME has less help and more responsibilities”

Open to alternatives

As this new world of travel unfurls, travellers’ priorities are many and varied: to become conversant with new practices, confirm ROI for trips to secure approval from more senior staff, and adopt different ways of travelling to absorb higher costs.

It may mean combining trips, which ticks the sustainability box, avoiding peak  24

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SMEs / Introduction

 times of travel, advance booking and being open to using alternative airlines, alternative routes, non-preferred and lower category hotels, less convenient hotel locations and optimising reward programmes.

Higher air fares are difficult to circumvent as the lowest booking classes are almost all closed out months ahead.

However, one positive is that airlines are quicker to complete refunds and the voucher nonsense has ended.

Midas Travel's Cox says travellers are open to these alternatives as they try to bypass changing airline schedules, cancellations and reduced availability. Julie Oliver says these are the only ways “to get the greatest value right now”.

Pratt at Blue Cube believes travellers are booking closer to departure date over uncertainty whether there is another Omnicron variant around the corner, and foresees pushback on advance booking.

Supply chain issues is at the root of the disruption. At the time of going to press, there had been strikes on TFL, strikes with EasyJet Spain, changes to Avanti’s routes and BA's suspension of short-haul flights.

It's no surprise to learn that the current travel experience isn’t what it should be.

“Buyers are reporting that typical trips are difficult and they don’t want to repeat that experience,” says ITM’s Davies.

The annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Study on SMEs reinforces this picture, citing delays, cancellations, concerns over travelling to certain parts of the world, health and safety concerns and heightened levels of stress.

“SME employees want to travel and they’re willing to move employer if their schedule doesn’t improve,” says Ami Taylor, Senior Director Global Product Strategy at Concur.

The data also suggests that more travel is falling on fewer shoulders and that travel will become a talent retention issue.

“Employees are really seeing travel as an optional rather than mandatory part of their role. First and foremost they need to feel safe," adds Taylor.

The SAP Concur survey also found SMEs are more worried about inflation and rising prices than their bigger counterparts.

“SMEs are operating with less margin for error whereas larger enterprises have more room for manoeuvre,” explains Taylor.

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Steady does it

The outlook is one of cautious optimism.

“Any employer will be pretty unpopular to push through a travel ban, not now at least,” says Blue Cube’s Pratt.

He cites one C-suite recruitment client who adopted video-conferencing during the pandemic unlikely to revert back, yet private equity clients who will only do business face-to-face and, overall, a pent-up demand for travel.

Another spectre on the horizon is a rise in transaction fees. “TMCs are doing so much more work for buyers now,” argues BTA Wratten by way of justification.

Adds ATPI’s Knights: “We’re saying to our clients that if they want to keep the same people on their TMC team, we need to put prices up, otherwise we will have to lose people." These client conversations will accelerate at the year end when staff pay reviews take place.

Ever the pragmatist and voice of reason, ITM’s Davies advises SMEs to think twice about switching suppliers if it’s about operational issues as he believes it is a temporary situation.

“Reach out to your peers for sense checking and benchmarking,” he says.

“Cost is going to be an issue for everybody,” concludes Wratten. “What you need is knowledge and, ultimately, that’s what TMCs deliver.”

Buyers are reporting that typical trips are difficult and they don't want to repeat that experience"

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THAT

IN-POLICY FEELING It’s making the train just before it leaves the platform Don’t lose that feeling to out-of-policy hotel bookings Give travellers everything they’re looking for, so they won’t book anywhere else

Get the feeling at hotelhub.com

SMEs / Solutions

Made to

MEASURE The pandemic expedited the development of bespoke travel management solutions for SMEs, says Gill Upton, who looks at some of the key products

A

greater appetite for digital solutions during the pandemic opened up a new world of efficiencies for SMEs and that demand has accelerated this year as they get back to business travel.

Faced with a need to simplify more complex travel, the industry made huge strides in technology in a relatively short period of time, assisted by a dramatic rise in the amount of data that can be analysed via cloud computing and a flurry of innovative tech disruptors entering the travel space.

Personal usage also broke down barriers as we all adapted to new digital ways of doing things. At the same time, savvy tech providers fully realised the benefit of working with more agile SMEs, who were first off the mark when restrictions were lifted, and launched bespoke products for these customers rather than simplified versions of those already developed for large-volume corporates.

“Tech is a huge area of our business and lots of great innovations came out of the pandemic,” says Abby Penston, CEO of the Focus Travel Partnership, whose TMC members specialise in SMEs. “The resource issue we all had made us look at how we work and we started to implement some of the fantastic efficiency tools out there.

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“Tech suppliers are coming to us as a gatekeeper to 50 TMCs. We work with them, encourage them and work out how we move forward. Tech companies have been banging the drum for so long that it must be so pleasing for them now.”

Guy Snelgar, Global Business Travel Director at Advantage, offers an alternate view. “There is a need for technology with a human touch. Success comes from having people to wrap around the technology.”

While Snelgar appreciates new tech entrants he argues that there are many useful tech tools out there which are proven and notes a nervousness among TMCs who have had their fingers burnt from failed tech implementations. His advice? “Don’t get hung up with chasing the shiny thing.”

Snelgar believes the biggest issue is sourcing content and getting it to work through the TMC eco system. “TMCs want easy access particularly set against a background of resource issues,” he says.

Here are some of the key tech solutions to help SMEs manage their travel:

Booking

The older legacy products are Sabre GetThere, Concur and Cytrix/Amadeus and these are arguably less relevant today.

There is also a reticence among SME TMCs

about using an OBT owned by a rival TMC. A more recent arrival, HotelHub provides smart booking technology, aggregating GDS and non-GDS content into a single interface in the TMC desktop.

It standardises rates and room types across these channels and ensures that no property is duplicated. Its AI-powered Rate Optimiser dynamically tracks hotel rates.

Corporate Traveller is the latest TMC to implement HotelHub's booking solution, initially across the US and Canada.

TravelPerk is an all-in-one platform to book flights, hotels, trains and cars claiming to have the world’s largest inventory, 24/7 support and easy booking.

Reed & Mackay’s proprietary online booking tool, R&M/Book, gives SME clients the ability to blend high-touch expertise with self-serve booking, also available through the Reed & Mackay app.

This year the Focus Travel Partnership invested in PSNGR1's NDC-enabled booking tool to provide GDS and direct content in a mobile first platform and a management and metrics dashboard to provide real-time air spend data. Gray Dawes, Blue Cube and TakeTwo have also partnered with US-based PSNGR1, which recently suffered a funding shortfall but is now in the process of being taken over by UK-based Snowfall Travel. 

Solutions / SMEs

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The Neo1 spend management platform from Amex GBT provides real-time visibility of all employee spend, including travel. It is specifically designed to help SMEs spend less on keeping track of cashflow and more on growing their business. It provides a single location for employees to source goods, services, and travel, managing the entire purchasing process from invoice approval to payment reconciliation.

Risk management/Duty of care

Our goal is to provide that which has, until now, only been available to large companies who can afford to build their own stack” New NDC-enabled booking platform Spotnana, from the Madrona Venture Group, is a single dashboard with visibility into all employee activity, claiming to offer buyers consumer-grade online booking tools. It’s a system of record in an open platform so anyone can contribute to it and add value. It’s what Madrona investor Steve Singh (Concur founder) calls "micro service architecture" and can be white labelled.

TapTrip is an omni-channel booking tool providing lower transaction fees, centralised bookings, tracked costs, traveller tracking, approval, expenses submission in seconds, and high compliance. This summer it was acquired by TripStax (see page 32).

TRIPBAM provides global hotel re-shopping, contract auditing, benchmarking, analytics and sourcing and also re-shopping for air, promising lower fares for more than 10% of tickets used.

Lufthansa and TripActions provide a business travel platform for SMEs with direct access to NDC deals on flights and hotels, rail and car rental content across two BusinessToGo tiers, Essentials and 

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Premium, depending on requirements. The platform also provides policy and profile management, TripActions' negotiated rates, duty of care and CO2 emissions reporting, real-time management information, 24/7 support and centralised billing.

Payments/Expenses

Conferma and Amadeus Cytric Travel & Expense have long been the go-to solutions.

A Conferma pilot could see a real total cost of trip solution by using a virtual card through Apple Pay on phones. In August, Conferma was acquired by Sabre, a longterm partner. Sabre says it plans to expand the Conferma Pay proposition.

TripActions’ Liquid is a centralised billing card that streamlines the payment process from reservation through to reconciliation.

Proactive policies are built into smart cards so that expense management is automated.

Interactive dashboards provide real-time transaction visibility for more informed decision-making.

"Our goal is to provide that which has, until now, only been available to large companies who can afford to build their own tech stack. It has been well received in the US and so we plan to roll it out to other markets over the coming months,” said Michael Riegel, General Manager EMEA for TripActions.

Earlier this year, TripActions launched a version of Liquid for companies with less than 100 employees in the US and plans to roll this out in the UK in the coming months.

Mia Bazo is a self-service travel risk platform targeted at SMEs, providing duty of care, travel tracking and travel security which includes itinerary management, active tracking, country safety guides, daily safety checks and real-time security alerts, all through an app.

Geo is Travelogix’s duty of care solution for TMCs. It moves away from the expensive and often intrusive GPS tracking solution that many enterprise companies have as their chosen method for duty of care, and does its job by passively tracking the itinerary data for any given traveller.

The Focus Partnership has invested in Focus Pinpoint, which offers traveller tracking and duty of care as an off-the-shelf product for members.

Grapevine started out as an AI-backed selling platform for ancillary bookings.

Grapevine Premium offers close to total trip management, with one email automatically triggered from a booking consolidating the itinerary, hotels, ground transportation, airport parking, travel risk for a destination and carbon footprint.

Advantage Partnership is rolling out Mobility Hub, its ground transportation platform partnered with Journey, Carey and Sixt Ride as a one-stop-shop for ancillaries.

Going forward the Mobility Hub will become part of Grapevine Premium.

TripLink from Concur aims to provide full visibility of spending data by connecting trips, travellers and itineraries across multiple channels to enhance and simplify the entire travel experience.

Sustainability

“Working on blanket counts across Europe is still not good enough; we need more granular data,” says Paula Cullen, Associate for Growth & Sustainability at consultancy Black Box Partnerships. 

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 “Progress is being made but it’s not moving as quickly as we need it to.”

Leanne Fowler of Agiito points to another challenge: “Travel buyers are aware of their responsibities in this area but find it hard to take ownership of it and be responsible for a budget. Noone is owning it so there is no traction to invest in it."

Travel Planet is an all-inclusive TMC solution with 24/7 offline cover and traveller tracking with offsetting options for air, rail, hotel and car rental.

COCO+ removes emissions from the full trip verifiably through third-party validated CO2 removal projects, enabling businesses to travel net zero. COCO+ pays for carbon offsetting through upfront bulk buying of carbon credit and this is built into the commercial model.

Hubli Green is a dedicated sustainability product for business travel and meetings allowing planners to choose city and venue locations based on the lowest carbon emissions, book sustainable spaces and remove high waste items from meetings. It is part of the Hubli search engine.

Mia Bazo provides free climate action tools, which allow for carbon budgeting, carbon planning and a tool to calculate the carbon footprint of vehicles, properties and any mode of travel. Customers can also purchase carbon offsets on the website.

Thrust Carbon provides a suite of tools including Thrust Calculator and Thrust Carbon Hotel Sustainability Index (TC-HSI), the latter generating a sustainability score for each individual hotel globally out of 100.

“This makes it an extremely useful tool because it empowers travellers to make decisions which they previously couldn’t have done,” says Black Box’s Cullen. Thrust is partnering with SME specialist Corporate Traveller and SAP Concur, enabling travel managers to have live emissions reporting.

Trees4Travel offers an offsetting programme to turn trips into trees. It calculates emissions from all modes of transport and all travel classes and supplies monthly reporting. It allows companies to track and follow their trees, matching the CO2 absorbed to the CO2 emitted by their travel. A dashboard shows how many trees have been planted, the amount of CO2 absorbed and what the monthly allowance is. The CO2 emissions can be detailed by class, department, traveller, timeline and

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even by a ‘what if’ scenario to see the potential savings when changing class.

In Amex’s travel and expense platform, Neo, CO2 emissions are displayed and greener options can be highlighted to help influence booking decisions. Furthermore, its sustainability tool, Green Compass, helps travel managers understand how to meet targets on reducing travel-related emissions.

TROOP enables travel managers to choose eco-friendly meetings and events planning strategy and minimise their footprint.

Greengage provides ECOsmart accreditation for hotels, venues and shortstay apartments and its EVENTsmart carbon calculator is a software platform that measures meetings/events of any size and CO2 resulting from attendee travel, accommodation, meeting space, catering, power, production and waste.

TripActions’ sustainability tools allow users to set carbon budgets based on historical spend and industry benchmarking data and get real-time data for all inventory via an easy-to-use analytics dashboard. There are three globally-recognised methodologies to measure and track progress.

Advito/BCD Meetings and Events has launched an ISO certified emissions calculator for meetings and events, which allows planners to input a wide range of data in the pre-event planning stage to drive more conscious decisions when choosing a destination, venue and other event design elements.

There is a need for technology with a human touch. Success comes from having people to wrap around the technology” SAP Concur has added the CHOOOSE Climate App to its App Centre enabling customers to better manage climate action and carbon offsetting activities.

Data processing

TripStax is a state-of-the-art data processing powerhouse which stores, cleans and enriches data enabling TMCs to provide richer analytics to clients. Developed over a long period by ATPI it is now a separate entity. It connects airline content from multiple sources including GDSs, aggregators and direct connections to airlines. Paying by subscription, TMCs can cherry pick modules or stacks of applications – approve, profile, track, analytics, content, docs and mobile.

Analytix from Travelogix is a suite of cloud-based solutions with real-time travel management data, reports and analysis consolidated from multiple back office and booking systems into one single source via reports and customisable dashboards. It can also consolidate data from multiple TMCs for a shared client to provide a single reporting platform with data in any currency.

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BUSINESS TRAVEL WHERE NEXT?

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SMEs / Suppliers: Rail

ONE TRACK mind

Rail operators are targeting SMEs with dedicated products while efforts are being made to improve consistency.

Dave Richardson reports

S

trikes aside, rail is poised to be a big part of the business travel return. With the recovery largely being led by SMEs, train operators are keen to entice SME travellers back on board and are stepping up a gear with dedicated incentives and innovations.

In other encouraging news, it seems the rail industry is finally making tracks to tackle some of the long-held corporate travel frustrations, especially the great bugbear – the lack of consistency.

Assuming the renewed commitment to rail will be upheld by the new Prime Minister (and, in all probability, a new Transport 34

Secretary), governments in Westminster, Edinburgh and Cardiff will retain control of all train operators, which was taken with the onset of Covid, and the over-arching Great British Railways (GBR) should be up and running by the spring of 2024.

Things are certainly now moving in the right direction but meaningful reforms – especially of the complex and confusing fares system – may take longer.

In advance of GBR, the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and also state-owned infrastructure operator Network Rail, has already begun engaging directly with the business travel

industry, talking regularly with the Business Travel Association (BTA) and also forming direct relationships with key players such as the Focus Travel Partnership.

RDG CEo, Jac Starr, says there's no need to wait until GBR takes over before making headway as it is already working with its transition team.

“There is a growing need for direct engagement to see how rail is performing compared to other modes, such as hotels and air, and it is quite obvious that we are not capturing all that traffic,” she explains.

“Many businesses place a lot of credence on encouraging people to use rail as 

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 their primary mode. We really want to focus on sustainability and will be making an announcement on a green travel pledge by the end of the autumn.”

RDG is also taking on the challenge of improving consistency. Although there will never be true consistency, when operators have a wide range of trains using a highlyvariable infrastructure, it can at least influence how they interact with their customers in general, including the important and potentially lucrative business sector.

“We’re looking to provide a level of consistency so that customers know what to expect as a minimum,” says Starr.

“The Department for Transport aims for efficiency and simplification, and while this can be construed as stifling innovation, this can be challenged. Business travellers should be confident in the future of rail and our desire to engage with the industry is a strong signal.”

Black Box Partnerships works with the RDG, industry bodies and individual players to help them understand rail, and Managing Partner Raj Sachdave – with a background in travel management and train operating – feels this is a good opportunity.

While business travel by rail remains significantly below 2019 levels, he says the DfT and RDG recognise the sector’s importance as the average business

36

traveller spends 6.5 times more than his or her leisure counterpart.

“Before the strikes we were seeing more long-distance business travel, but in all honesty some of what we lost will never return because of hybrid working,” says Sachdave.

“Businesses want to use rail but the number one pain point is the lack of consistency. What kind of service will you actually get and will the service actually run?

“The BTA has done a fantastic job in its lobbying, getting business travel to the fore, and the RDG recognises its importance for average yield, customer experience and sustainability.”

Black Box is finding the threshold for SMEs involving a TMC to manage their rail spend is coming down, one reason being that many SMEs work for large corporations and must adhere to their travel policies. But there is a role for train operators to design products for local businesses not looking for other travel services or a lot of management information.

Avanti West Coast has completed the soft launch of a new loyalty scheme which offers

Businesses want to use rail but the number one pain point is the lack of consistency”

members instant rewards for joining, including ticket discounts and hot drinks on board, and travel rewards for those making enough journeys. Club Avanti is currently offered only on bookings through its own website and app but will be expanded to include bookings made elsewhere in future.

It has been innovating on board too, with the launch in 2021 of a new class of travel making it the only train operator (with the exception of Eurostar) to offer three classes.

About one million Standard Premium tickets have already been sold but initially it was only available to purchase as an upgrade.

Advance purchase now accounts for 70% of bookings, giving passengers more roomy seats without the catering and other extras in First Class. Standard Premium carriages are also being upgraded as part of the £117 million upgrade of its Pendolino fleet, with First Class provision further reduced in most revamped trains.

Avanti had to announce a revised timetable in August “until further notice”, with frequencies on London-Birmingham and London-Manchester cut from three an hour to just one due to a shortage of drivers. This has fed into the highlypoliticised row about rail strikes generally.

TransPennine Express has had one of the most ambitious fleet renewals in the country, with trains of genuine inter-city standard now available on routes such as Liverpool-Newcastle and Manchester 

istockphoto.com / Ilya Lukichev

SMEs / Suppliers: Rail

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Untitled

istockphoto.com / Ilya Lukichev

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Business Direct Untitled-1 1 SME Suppliers_V7.indd 37

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In the past it was all about cost, cost, cost, but now it's about productivity and wellbeing”

 Airport-Glasgow/Edinburgh, although some are not yet in service. It has now launched TransPennine Express Business, an online portal providing the lowest fares and a tailored reporting package.

Darren higgins, the operator's Commercial Director, said: “We are fully aware of the part we play in connecting businesses across the North, into Scotland and beyond. "our aim was always to deliver something for SME businesses that provided the best possible deals, alongside a portal that helped give greater control and visibility of expenditure.”

South Western Railway might be mainly a commuter network but its routes from London Waterloo include Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth where there is significant business travel. Business Sales Manager Joe Thurgood says deals are available on some routes but businesses are also attracted by the productivity and sustainability benefits. “our strategy is to talk to SMEs about modal shift from car travel,” he says. “In the past it was all about cost, cost, cost, but now it’s about productivity and wellbeing.

Take a business customer who’s flying in from Dubai, for example, and being asked to get straight into a rental car to drive

38

home. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get a taxi to the station then a First Class train journey?

“While many businesses don’t need people in the office all the time, what about new business and the need to shake hands?”

LNER also has its own travel portal, LNER4Business, aimed at SMEs and reports “an amazing return post Covid”. It offers business specific fares exclusively through the portal and via TMCs and is also happy to work directly with corporate clients to investigate opportunities for specific route deals.

Eurostar is reporting a strong return to business travel in the first half of 2022, with 70% of its pre-pandemic levels returning and nearly 80% of survey respondents saying they expected to travel at least as often as in 2019.

Crucially, it says sustainability is now at the heart of many business travel policies and so far this year over 20% of its corporate clients are mandating train travel for journeys where this is a viable option.

Its latest research released in July backed this up, with a quarter of businesses surveyed stating that their employer is mandating train travel for work trips, a figure that is even higher among smaller businesses. heathrow Express has also benefited as passenger levels return towards normal at the airport but faces a new competitive challenge when Elizabeth Line trains start direct services from the airport to central London and Canary Wharf.

Earlier this summer, heathrow Express launched an initiative aimed at business

travellers, where Business First ticket holders will be able to use priority lanes at airport security.

Mark Eastwood, Commercial Strategy Lead, said: “We know our customers value speed and convenience. For those in a rush, we are confident that we will now offer not only an express train, but quick route to the plane from central London.”

In addition to Fast Track, Business First passengers also get extra legroom and a personal table to work from.

But the many positive developments will stall until services throughout Britain get back to normal.

Scott Davis, CEo of the ITM, says: “Travel managers, no matter what size of spend, are on the receiving end of a lot of noise from their travellers due to frustrations with cancelled trains and reduced timetables.

“There has also been a notable rise in fares, but at the same time service levels have dropped. The ‘wish list’ for any corporate, not just SMEs, would be for rail operators to provide a reliable timetable and consistent service levels.”

Clive Wratten, CEo of the BTA, adds: “For the rail industry to continue to appeal to SMEs, it’s vital that it delivers a reformation that is both modern and competitive. A large part of this will come from implementing rail ticket reform and significantly improving the customer experience.

"Enhancements required include up-todate, accurate information on delays and cancellations, and better delay repay schemes for business travellers. Most importantly, the rail industry must fully engage with TMCs.”

ISToCkPhoTo.CoM / ILyA LukIChEv

SMEs / Suppliers: Rail

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SHOW US YOUR REAL BUSINESS FACE.

ISToCkPhoTo.CoM / ILyA LukIChEv

IT MEANS MORE IF YOU’RE THERE IN PERSON.

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SMEs / Suppliers

SIZE MATTERS Suppliers across all sectors are tailoring products to fit the specific business travel needs of SMEs

S

MEs are very sophisticated and selfsufficient customers,” says Doreen Burse, Senior VP Worldwide Sales for United Airlines, which will launch a new platform, United for Business Blueprint, later this year. Designed with smaller organisations in mind, it will allow users to self-service and manage travel programmes independently.

“We will introduce a more intuitive sign-up process where in just a few clicks customers can register, view programmes and enrol in an option that best meets their business travel needs,” continues Burse.

“SMEs will be able to easily rebook and exchange travel and view and use future

Many SMEs may not have a dedicated travel buyer or preferred accommodation booking platform” flight credits all in one place. There will also be much more reporting available, including the option to review travel activity based on money spent or trips taken, with the option to filter based by date of travel, destination, origin and more.

United says it has taken an “innovative shift”, moving away from a focus on discounted fares to allow customers to work with a United sales rep to choose other benefits that fit their needs, such as upgrades to Economy Plus or Wi-Fi access.

Virgin Atlantic is also due to launch a new platform for its corporate and SME clients "in the not too distant future with development ongoing".

It is already part of bluebiz, a rewards and benefits programme where SMEs can earn credits on Virgin Atlantic as well as partner 40

airlines Air France, KLM and Delta Air Lines, and receive benefits like free name changes on bookings.

Waste reduction

Cost is a key concern for SMEs, particularly amid the current economic headwinds, says Matthew Bassant, Global Head of B2B Country Marketing for mobility app FREE NOW for Business.

“The current cost of living crisis is not just impacting the public, businesses, particularly SMEs, are and will struggle, too. With that in mind, cost control will be at the forefront of their minds and the FREE NOW for Business app helps SMEs to monitor and manage costs in a number of ways.”

The app allows businesses to see exactly what they’re spending in real time, to place restrictions using a variety of parameters – day of the week, time of day, location and also what vehicles travellers are allowed to choose – and means that staff no longer have to manually expense taxi receipts.

Saving both time and money is crucial for SMEs, says Lee Curtis, CEO of 3Sixty, a global marketplace giving access to alternative accommodation using machine learning and human expertise.

“Many SMEs may not have a dedicated travel buyer or preferred accommodation booking platform, giving rise to time wasted comparing multiple hotels and apartments on different sites, lack of substantial duty of care processes, and ultimately, confusion about travel policies. Larger companies can often negotiate bulk discounts too.”

With this in mind, 3Sixty is free to use and offers a flexible bid feature that can help further drive down costs for SMEs. “On average, our clients save 25-35% when they start using our technology,” adds Curtis.

Recognising the significance of the SME market, corporate accommodation specialist AltoVita has this summer launched a tailored

offering for start-up companies, providing discounted booking fees, no transaction fees, no security deposits, and consolidated billing statements and management. It is available to companies less than 10 years old with under $5 million in annual revenue.

Vivi Cahyadi Himmel, CEO and Co-Founder, says the move “spotlights our commitment to the start-up ecosystem, which is often an overlooked demographic for extended stay accommodation in the sector”.

Flexibility

Agile SMEs are also looking for more flexibility from their supplier partners.

“During the pandemic in particular, we noticed how essential travel and face-to-face meetings were for small and medium sized businesses and it became apparent they wanted convenient and easily accessible programmes to share with their travellers,” says Sophie Hulgard, SVP Sales Northern Europe at Accor.

“As trips were constantly changing due to changes in circumstances and travel rules, flexibility became key and companies needed to be able to change and rearrange their trips at short notice.”

In response, in January 2022 the hotel giant launched Accor Business Offer Auto-Enroll, tailored specifically for SMEs, providing a selfregistration programme and preferential discounts from 5% to 9% across its portfolio.

The programme provides a fully-automated contracting process and a "quick, efficient and easy" booking solution. Clients can enrol online and get access codes within 24 hours so they can start saving on business trips immediately, with discounts of up to 9% applied automatically.

“To cater to the medium-sized travel budget, we also offer a dedicated team of sales experts across Europe to help make the booking process as simple as possible for clients,” adds Hulgard.

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TALKING TRAVEL

Game, set and match

ANDY MURRAY Tennis champ Andy Murray shares travel tips, faves and pet hates in an exclusive interview with Angela Sara West

42

As for airlines? “I tend to switch around between airlines because I fly so much. I like an aisle seat, so I can easily get up and about and stretch the legs.”

Murray sticks to drinking water in-flight.

“I’m partial to a Coca-Cola from time-to-time, and maybe a glass of Champagne after a good trip with a few wins!”

His top travel tip? “Sleep as much as you can, whenever you can. It’s the only way to get over jetlag quickly.”

And what about packing? “I take around 10 rackets in my bag per tournament and,

Travel has pretty much gone back to normal post-Covid and I'm now travelling as much as I did before. I tend to travel by Eurostar to Europe if I can” depending on the surface and whether it’s a Grand Slam or an ATP tournament, around three pairs of shoes. Thankfully, I’ve never lost a bag, although I’ve sometimes arrived before it!”

Fave destinations? “I always love going to Australia. Playing the Australian Open at the start of the year gives me the opportunity to escape a big chunk of the British winter and I love Melbourne and the lifestyle there. Rome is also a great city, as is Shanghai. They are so vibrant in very different ways.

“I’m always really well received in Asia and, obviously, the crowd in Glasgow is usually pretty warm (and noisy!)”

Standout trips include swimming with sharks and rays in the Maldives. “But on a completely different level, I got to go to the White House one year, which was amazing. I was lucky enough to get a VIP tour. It was pretty surreal walking the same corridors as the Presidents of the United States.”

Still on his bucket list? “I’d love to do a bit more of Africa because it’s somewhere I don’t get to travel to on the tennis tour. And then two places I really enjoyed visiting for the Olympics - Rio and Tokyo - I’d love to go back to and explore properly.

“We went to Disney this year, which was a real highlight. It was such a different trip for me and we really embraced all the activities.

I spent quite a lot of time wearing Micky Mouse ears, so that was lots of fun, for my kids anyway!”

Checking in at Cromlix

A return to his roots saw the sports legend purchase and refurbish a property close to his heart to save it from closure. “Cromlix is a very special place to me. It’s three miles from Dunblane, where I grew up, so I love going back there whenever I can."

Reinventing the glorious era of grand country house living, the Scot has turned the Victorian Perthshire mansion into a five-star destination. “It’s a bit of a home-away-fromhome, a very warm and inviting place to stay.

It’s where Kim and I got married. The scenery is beautiful, there’s a tennis court (of course!), a private loch for fishing, and the kids love feeding the chickens in the kitchen garden.”

So, finally, what has travelling taught him?

“That the world is a special place, and we must do everything we can to look after it.”

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AMC

A

ndy Murray has our heads turning and hearts racing most summers in SW19. A power force in the game, he’s twice clinched the coveted Wimbledon title, won Olympic Gold medals and become a World No.1.

Most of his practice is at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton but he trains frequently at the All England Club. “Wimbledon is probably the ultimate place to play tennis in the UK, but there’s a court on the Isle of Harris in Scotland, which I think is the most remote tennis court in the world. It looks incredible and I’d love to play there.”

Courted to Surrey, the UK’s most-wooded county scores highly with this sportsman.

“Being near Gatwick and Heathrow was a big draw when I moved there because I was travelling up to 40 weeks a year.”

He’s also an avid golfer who's frequently found practising his swing on Surrey’s fairways. “I play with my brother, Jamie, and I’ve played a few rounds with Tim Henman, too.”

Now Stateside for the tournaments leading up to the US Open, Murray is currently staying in Cincinnati. “I’ve just left Montreal and was in Rhode Island before that," he says.

“Travel has pretty much gone back to normal post-Covid and I’m now travelling as much as I did before. I tend to travel by Eurostar to Europe if I can. I’ve taken it to Paris, Rotterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, and it’s generally easier and more sustainable.”

Any travel bugbears? “I dislike hotel rooms with street or corridor noise, and getting to the airport early. I’m not very good at leaving enough time at the airport so it can be a bit rushed. I’m used to it now but it’s probably a bit stressful for my travelling companions!”

TALKING TRAVEL

AMC

A N DY M U R R AY Andy Murray juggles many balls and successful business ventures, including 77 Sports Management, 77sportsmanagement.com.

He has teamed up with his brother Jamie, British tennis coach Jamie Delgado and Game4Padel to promote the racket sport padel, game4padel.com.

The creative player also boasts a high-flying clothing collection. The official clothing brand of the LTA and Tennis Scotland, AMC is an eco-friendly, highperformance tennis clothing line with Castore, castore.com/pages/amc.

He also owns Cromlix Hotel, cromlix.com.

Find out more at andymurray.com

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Sustainability

Step by

STEP

With the help of the experts, here’s a five-step guide to cutting your travel carbon footprint

44

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SuStainability

1

enGAGe

“As with any significant change in business practice, senior stakeholder buy-in is crucial to delivering change,” says Paula Cullen, Associate for Growth and Sustainability at Black Box Partnerships.

“We recommend that you canvass ideas from your colleagues and travellers. Many will have knowledge to share so ignite that passion. Education is key and there are many free resources and materials online.

Consider courses to upskill employees to help you on your journey.”

According to a survey by SAP Concur, many UK companies are already going down this path. Its recent poll of 700 corporate travel decision makers across the UK found 64% are offering their employees formalised training and education programmes on sustainability, 70% have internal communication campaigns in place and 68% have regular communication with business travellers about their carbon footprint for the duration of their trip.

“As demand for higher levels of sustainability grows, questions about sustainability policies will be raised more strongly, more often and by more parties,

from management and employees to supply-chain partners and external stakeholders – as well as the employees themselves. It is therefore positive to see that so many UK businesses are already making great strides in their quest for green business travel programmes,” says Ami Taylor, SAP Concur Senior Director Global Product Strategy.

2

MeAsuRe

“The first step in emission reduction is to measure and get the statistics needed to formulate a plan,” says Pippa Ganderton, Product Director ATPI Halo.

Only by knowing the breakdown of your current carbon footprint can you identify where you need to change behaviours and revise your travel policy.

This is where a TMC can provide a vital helping hand, capturing emissions data throughout the booking and travel process and, crucially, presenting it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format to clearly show the areas to prioritise.

Many TMCs, including global players such as CWT, have drafted in the assistance of

specialist start-up Thrust Carbon, which has devised a calculator to measure hundreds of data points – air, hotel, rail, car and more – to provide clients with “robust and defensible” reporting.

“We wouldn’t be satisfied with only understanding the average cost of travel, so why are we still satisfied with average and sporadic emissions numbers?” says Thrust Carbon Founder Mark Corbett.

“You can’t reduce your financial travel budget based on average prices, and you won’t be able to reduce your emissions looking at average emissions data either.”

Whichever way you measure your travel carbon emissions, don’t just look at your overall footprint. Break it down by specific category (air, hotel, rail) and by department or location. If possible, compare your emissions year-on-year or month-onmonth to identify trends.

Once you have the data, share it with key stakeholders, including senior business leaders, specific departments, or your most frequent travellers, providing meaningful comparisons where relevant. Better still, display this information at the point of booking to change behaviours. 

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SUSTAINABILITY

3

Rethink

Only when you’ve got your key stakeholders on board and you’ve collected and shared that all-important data can you start to analyse your travel patterns and behaviours and find ways to make reductions in your carbon footprint.

Of course, the best way to cut your travel carbon footprint is to reduce the amount of travel, perhaps by switching to virtual meetings, but when travel is essential there are other ways to make an impact.

Studies have found that over 50% of travellers are ready to reduce the amount they fly in response to climate change but only 3% do so. “There’s a key barrier: time.

Afford your travellers more time to reach destinations via greener modes of travel, such as rail,” says Cullen at Black Box. If flying is the only option, consider downgrading from premium class to economy. On long-haul routes this can more than halve the carbon impact of a flight. However, it could also impact the wellbeing of your employees. To counteract this, consider upgrading their accommodation or providing employees with a wellbeing package on arrival, which would still result in a lower carbon footprint overall.

The location of a meeting is also key, particularly with a more dispersed workforce. The company head office might no longer be the best place to convene.

Look at where your employees are based and work out which locations would require the least carbon cost.

And don’t forget about that crucial last mile – getting from the airport or station to a meeting. Consider mandating the use of transfers in electric vehicles or, where available and practical, encouraging the use city bike rentals and e-scooters, or factoring in extra time for walking.

“Educate and inform travellers of local public transport options to avoid the use of taxis,” adds Cullen.

4

Offset

”Although improvements are being made, 100% sustainable travel is still a long way off, so looking at offsetting unavoidable carbon emissions is still important,” says ATPI Halo's Ganderton.

46

Offsetting shouldn't be confined to larger travel programmes, she adds. "ATPI Halo has some clients with relatively small offset projects – under 80 CO2 tonnes. Despite the small volumes, they are keen to do the right thing as part of their ESG strategy and to have the right approach in place, starting small and assuming the volume will grow as their businesses develop, and secondly they want to be able to publicly declare their greenhouse gas reduction commitments."

But make sure you do your due diligence.

It's an unregulated industry and buying into unaccredited projects, if not properly monitored, can do more harm than good and potentially put your business in a compromising position.

Working with a TMC will help ensure you're buying into audited schemes and is also likely to reduce the cost of the offset because TMCs can buy in bulk at a lower fixed price for multiple clients.

5

Check suppliers

"Speak with suppliers to understand their sustainability plans and consider if you want to preference the suppliers who are more proactive," says Pat McDonagh, CEO Clarity Business Travel.

Keep track of innovations. Premier Inn, for example, is trialling electric alternatives to gas and has just started work on its first allelectric hotel. It is also rolling out one of the UK's largest EV charging point networks.

"We are unique in our operating model as we own and operate all the hotels in our portfolio, so can implement energy efficiency programmes quickly and at scale," says Rosana Elias, Head of Sustainability for parent company Whitbread.

"We also have the opportunity to trial new technologies before rolling them out, and, because of the size of our estate, we know even small changes can make a big impact."

For airlines, the focus is to invest in Sustainability Aviation Fuel (SAF) and most major airlines have now committed to SAF supplies, with United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa and British Airways among those leading the way.

In the meantime, prioritise airlines with newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft, direct flights and switch to rail where possible.

As demand for higher levels of sustainability grows, questions about sustainable policies will be raised more strongly, more often and by more parties”

LITTLE EXTRAS Encourage your travellers to imagine they are paying their hotel bill and use the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign if they’re happy not to have their towels or sheets replaced daily.

Recommend your travellers pack light – lighter loads are more fuel efficient for aircraft – and take along a reusable coffee cup and water bottle for their travels.

Many airlines are now offering passengers the option to pre-order meals. Not only does this ensure you don’t miss out on the chicken or fish, it allows airlines to carry fewer meals and lighten their load.

Advise travellers to use moderate temperature settings for heating or cooling their room. Setting it too high or low and having to adjust it back the other way wastes energy.

THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.com

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that doesn’t cost the earth

Over 800 UK hotels powered by renewable electricity* Only available at premierinn.com

*Visit our website for more information.

Untitled-3 1

30/08/2022 14:39

DEPARTURES

Reality check HOTE L : O NE HU NDR E D SHO R E DITCH, L O NDO N THE HOTEL

Previously the Ace

THE BUSINESS

The lobby area, with

hotel, this independently-owned

work tables, comfy chairs and USB

property by the Lore Group reopened

ports, is set up for meetings and laptop

in March 2022. With the coolest of

work, although the constant beat of

names and addresses, it has 258

house music isn't conducive to complex

exquisitely-designed rooms and suites.

discussions or telephone calls. There

THE CHECK-IN

I arrived early and

are also five meeting rooms, of various

my room wasn't quite ready but my

sizes, and a large event space, The One

luggage was quickly stored and I was

Hundred room, which features floor-to-

shown to the lobby area, which doubles

ceiling glass and stunningly distracting

as a meeting area and was alive to the

views of the London city skyline

chirping of multiple laptops being

THE FACILITIES

The property has

tapped. I found a cosy spot in a lounge

three bars and six restaurants. Goddard

chair next to the coffee shop.

& Gibbs is an all-day seafood restaurant

THE ROOM

My studio room (228)

and wine bar, at its centre a rather

was super-comfortable, with a king-size

incongruous giant yellow rock sculpture.

pebble-based cacti. It can be booked for

bed, work station and a wall-to-wall

The menu highlights ethical sourcing

private events. A workout area features

white couch, small dining table, a

and local suppliers. The kitchen served

striking tapestry and bespoke art work

up one of the best fish pies I have ever

by designer and architect Jacu Strauss,

had. Seed Library is a basement cocktail

black-out blinds, a mini-fridge, and pull-

bar whilst at the opposite end of the

out tea and coffee station. With its

building on the seventh floor there's

white and beige palette - a contrast to

one of the most impressive rooftop

the vivid colours seen in the rest of the

bars and terraces in London, inspired

Street, London E1 6JQ, Studio rooms

hotel - and unfussy decor, it elicited a

by California's desert cities, with

from £300, onehundredshoreditch.com.

feeling of calm and relaxation.

powdery-pink colours, greenery and

Steve Hartridge

STAFF ARE SUPERB AND THE ROOFTOP SPACE IS ALSO SOMETHING SPECIAL

five Peloton bikes.

THE VERDICT

A classy hotel that's

warm and cosy but contemporary and sleek. Staff are superb and the rooftop space is also something special.

THE DETAILS

100 Shoreditch High

HOT E L : PR E M IE R INN PADDING TO N BASIN THE HOTEL

A five-minute walk

Green and Black chocolate (which I love

from Paddington Station in London's

and scoffed immediately). There’s also

regenerated Paddington Basin, this 393-

an ironing board, flatscreen TV, and an

room hotel opened in March 2022. It’s

upgraded vanity unit with a stall and

the first of three new hotels being

hairdryer, all cleverly designed to

opened by parent Whitbread in the

maximise space. Plus rooms also come

Paddington and Marylebone area of the

with faster ‘Ultimate’ WiFi too. My only

capital by the end of 2023.

criticim was that the power shower

THE CHECK-IN

The lobby was

bustling when I arrived at around

could have been a bit more powerful.

THE BUSINESS

Speedy Wi-Fi, above

5.30pm. I tried the self check-in kiosks

desk power points and the larger desks

but my booking code wasn’t accepted

made my bedroom a comfortable space

so I approached the reception desk and

to check emails. On my visit the noise

waited in line. There were a few people

and activity levels in the lobby weren't

apparently waiting for their rooms to be

conducive to work or meetings but

ready but thankfully mine was.

there were quiet corners in the

THE ROOM

I stayed in one of

the brand’s new Premier Plus rooms,

and chips and a roast on Sundays.

restaurant and bar.

THE FACILITIES

THE VERDICT

A long staircase

ALL THE BEST BITS OF A PREMIER INN BUT WITH SOME WELL-EXECUTED EXTRA TOUCHES

which have some of the same features

from the lobby leads down to the vast

as a standard Premier Inn room, such

Bar + Block Steakhouse restaurant,

as the famous king-size Hypnos bed

which is where breakfast is also served

and a choice of pillow, but with some

(full English £9.50 and continental

extras, such as a bigger desk with an

£7.50). Lunchtimes and evenings the

adjustable chair, mini-fridge with

speciality is a selection of hand cut

complimentary still and sparkling water,

steaks – 8oz, 12oz, 16oz or even bigger

premierinn.com

Nespresso machine, tea bags and some

on request. There's also burgers, fish

Bev Fearis

48

This new-build has

all the best bits of a Premier Inn but with some well-executed extra touches.

It's in a pretty, vibrant part of London that I never even knew existed but I will definitely go back.

THE DETAILS

Paddington

Exchange, N Wharf Rd, London W2 1LF

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DEPARTURES

HOT E L : DE V E R E WO K E F IE L D E STAT E THE HOTEL

This mansion house

sofa, large LCD TV, Wi-Fi, tea and coffee

hotel, originally built in the 1560s as a

making facilities, fridge and a Roberts

private family home, is set in 250 acres

radio. The bathroom had double sinks,

of peaceful Berkshire countryside so

a bath tub (some suites have roll-top

feels a million miles from urban life but

baths) and a separate rain shower.

is actually a mere 15 minutes’ drive

THE BUSINESS

The estate boasts

from Reading town centre and 40

an impressive 39 event spaces, from

minutes from Heathrow.

intimate meeting rooms for six to the

THE CHECK-IN

Although a fair walk

500-capacity Wokefield Suite. A dedicated

from the car park to reception, the

conference centre at Wokefield Place

check-in was efficient and friendly and I

has been kitted out with the latest tech.

was soon in my room, one of 12 luxury

THE FACILITIES

Breakfast buffet,

suites and 87 guestrooms in the

lunch and dinner is served in the bright

Mansion House itself, all of which were

and airy 1560 Restaurant & Bar. The

refreshed as part of a £20 million

adjoining terrace is perfect for al fresco

refurbishment in 2018.

dining or drinks looking out over the

THE VERDICT

This hotel has a real

With another 222

estate. The View restaurant and bar at

rooms in Wokefield Place and 40 in

Wokefield Place is open every evening

Wellington Lodge, there are 376 rooms

until 9pm and for sports fans Benedict’s

in all. As part of the £20 million spend,

has large screens. There’s also a fully-

248 rooms were refurbished and the

equipped gym and indoor pool and, last

others had a soft refurb. My room was

but not least, a par 72 championship

very spacious with far-reaching views

golf course (play mid-week for £35) and

over the hotel’s sports pitches and

a Golf Academy where you can hit some

countryside beyond. It had a very

balls in the floodlit range or take a golf

rooms from £119 including breakfast.

comfortable king-size bed, desk, leather

lesson with a PGA Professional.

Matt Bonner

THE ROOM

sense of grandeur in a tranquil setting

AT THE GOLF ACADEMY YOU CAN TAKE A GOLF LESSON WITH A PGA PROFESSIONAL

(you can borrow Hunter wellies and explore the grounds). The refurb and the high-tech conference facilities make it a firm favourite for corporate gatherings.

THE DETAILS

De Vere Wokefield

Estate, Goodboys Lane, Reading RG7 3AE, devere.co.uk/wokefield-estate, double

T R AIN: CAL E DO NIAN SL E E PE R THE TRAIN

This overnight sleeper

bunk doubled as seating, with a head

service links London with a range of

rest for added comfort. Each cabin has

Scottish cities effortlessly, and with

its own temperature controls, dimmable

eco-friendly credentials.

lights and good, complimentary WiFi.

THE JOURNEY

I travelled in a Club

THE SERVICE

Towels and Scottish

Room overnight between Inverness and

toiletries were provided and the bunks

London Euston, which left punctually at

were made up ready for the night with

8.26pm and arrives in London 12 hours

a very comfortable well-padded

later (depending on signalling priorities).

Glencraft mattress, two full-sized

Check-in was done on the platform as I

pillows and a generous duvet in quality

boarded and was combined with a

white linens. The entire train felt clean

welcome explanation of the hotel-style

and modern with décor and colour

key-card system for my room and

schemes matching that of the Scottish

dining options. Digital displays in each

landscape. Onboard dinner was

carriage give location and destination

available for purchase in the Lounge

guidance and journey updates.

Car from boarding (45 minutes before

THE SEAT

My Club Room

THE VERDICT

departure). Choices included Haggis,

No queuing, no

security checks, no luggage restrictions

offered bunk beds, wash basin and an

Neeps and Tatties or Macaroni Cheese,

ensuite toilet which doubled as a

local cheese board and snacks. Staff

shower cubicle. The space was limited

were very friendly and cheerful.

but good design touches ensured there

Breakfast is pre-ordered by door card

was sufficient space to stow a bag, hang

30 minutes after boarding for delivery

clothes and power and charge

to your room or served the Lounge Car.

electricals. A collapsible table pulled out

The menu ranges from yoghurt and

from below the sink for those who want

granola to a hearty Full Highland

£250 for shared, www.sleeper.scot

to work or dine in the cabin. The lower

Breakfast complete with black pudding.

Julie Baxter

are immediate plus points. In these

NO QUEUING, NO SECURITY CHECKS, NO LUGGAGE RESTRICTIONS

CO2-conscious times, this comfortable rail journey really did make the switch from air or road to rail seem a sensible, easy and efficient option.

THE DETAILS

Club Rooms from

£205 return for a solo traveller and

THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM

Reality Check V10.indd 49

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8/25/22 04:32 PM

DEPARTURES

The final word

Out of this world

BREAKFAST IS SERVED

N

ot sure where to take your top performers on their next big jolly?

Got a few hundred thousand dollars to spare? How about a trip into space?

Global Travel Collection, part of the Internova Travel Group, has joined forces with Space Perspective to offer six-hour flights on its Spaceship Neptune, billed as the world's most accessible, sustainable and safest spacecraft.

Instead of burning rocket fuel and high G forces, Spaceship Neptune is gently propelled by a state-of-the-art 700-foot-tall SpaceBalloon, taking passengers 100,000 feet above the Earth for breathtaking views – and for an equally breathtaking price of $125,000 per person.

But you've got a few years to start saving because the Global Travel flights don't go until 2025.

The spaceship has room for

1

Reykjavik: £19.19

2

Zermatt: £18.91

3

Zurich: £18.91

4

Basel: £17.19

5

Bruges: £15.56

6

Salzburg: £15.53

7

Geneva: £15.47

8

London: £15.06

9

Venice: £14.93

10

Amsterdam: £14.50

Research by OTA Insight

eight passengers (plus the pilot) and has its own Space Lounge with a fully-stocked bar, and a loo too.

Passengers will spend two hours playing astronaut before a gentle descent, with the entire

Are you fit to travel?

D

on’t panic if you start to notice your fellow passengers doing star jumps and burpees in the corner of the airport lounge.

It’s probably because they’ve signed up for a new audio fitness app, WithU, now being offered to members of Collinson’s Priority Pass.

The fitness app gives road warriors 1,000 audio-guided workouts, delivered by ‘world-class coaches’ and incorporating the use of a 3D Avatar, so for all you frequent flyers out there, there’s no excuse not to stay in shape on a business trip.

50

Accoring to a survey of 55,000 hotels by data company OTA Insight, you'll pay an average of £11.20 per person for breakfast in European hotels, but nearly twice as much in some places.

Here are the 10 European cities with the most pricey breakfasts:

experience captured with both interior and exterior video and still photographs (just imagine those LinkedIn posts), plus there's WiFi for livestreaming to the rest of the poor workforce who didn't make their targets.

If you've ever wondered what the best time is to hold your weekly team meeting, we think we've found it - 11am on Wednesdays.

According to job aggregator ClickJobs.io, that's the time when it sees the biggest surge in job searches. With a switch to hybrid and remote working, job search patterns have shifted from evenings and weekends to a sneaky peek during the working week, especially midweek.

So, if you want to make sure you don't lose your best talent, that's when to keep a close eye on them.

THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM

Final Word v10.indd 50

8/30/22 02:48 PM

A IS AV ENJOY LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Speed up your journey when you register with QuickPass.

Spend less time at collection and more time exploring.

Register using the most convenient option for you, whether online, via messenger or over the phone.

WELCOME TO BETTER CAR HIRE FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT YOUR AVIS ACCOUNT MANAGER OR VISIT AVIS.CO.UK/QUICKPASS

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21/06/2022 09:57

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF THE 2022 FINALISTS AND THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS We look forward to seeing you all at the ceremony on September 13th TheBusinessTravelPeopleAwards.com

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8/30/22 02:06 PM