INDUSTRY PARTNER NEWSLETTER THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES FROM OUR BTA INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Looking Forward To Welcoming You Back On Board In the past few months, we’ve all been missing the people and places we love. When the world opens up once more, we are looking forward to welcoming you back on board.
Keep up to date at ba.com/welcomeonboard
You’ll see changes at every step of the journey when you fly with us, with new protective measures on the ground and in the air. Your safety remains at the heart of everything we do.
Will Travel Be “Essential”? “Normal life” is on hold. Most of us are staying in our homes and – though it may not seem the most important thing right now – the European business travel platforms are suffering a dramatic drop in usage. Those of us who are involved in this industry are, understandably, concerned about what might happen next. Speculation is unhelpful. All we can say for now is that, to ease the pressures on health care systems, the current lockdown situation seems likely to be eased off gradually. On the way to ‘lockdown” we passed through a brief phase where many governments and companies were asking people to restrict themselves to “Essential Travel Only”. It didn’t last long – those instructions soon became “stay at home”. But eventually the lockdown will ease. The question then is will we go back to the old “business (travel) as usual”? I think we might not, but rather re-baseline our policies around the notion of “essential travel only”. Here’s some reasons why: 1 – These are unprecedented times. Most companies’ balance sheets will be under strain for an extended period – so even as our situation evolves, cost control will be a strong driver of policy and T&E spend is always a target during a recession.
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The business development team at HotelREZ Hotels & Resorts (chain code HO) can offer you free HOD (hotel description) checks on your agency GDS content (Sabre/Amadeus/Travelport – Galileo and Worldspan) with advice to ensure you are offering a clear message to the agency and traveler in a post COVID world. We can also recommend seamless messages that you can use for free GDS marketing when an agent is checking availability by room or rate and also after the booking has been made by them. We have set up a few good partnerships for essential key agency networks that we can share with you. In the future, strategies will have to be flexible and adapted to ensure you optimize your property’s visibility in preparation for a better tomorrow, and are working with the best partners possible. This is the time to ensure your GDS partner offers you excellent technology, digital marketing opportunities and demand generation; including participation in many worldwide TMC & consortia partnerships at an attractive cost of sale to optimize and increase your sales and revenue. Please feel free to contact us on info@hotelrez.com suggestions on messaging and partnerships.
and we will be happy to offer you
Keep well and safe. Daniel, Deborah and Mark and all the team at HotelREZ
Beyond Clean Rooms
Content Services For Lodging Indicators For Purified Hotels The COVID 19 crisis has accentuated a need for hoteliers to provide peace of mind to their guests; allowing them to sleep comfortably knowing their room has been thoroughly sanitized. While hotels have always taken providing clean rooms seriously, some are taking actions that will provide them a competitive advantage as the travel and hospitality industry rebounds. These hotels want to ensure that individuals shopping for rooms understand there is a difference. Sabre Content Services for Lodging APIs provide the ability to search for and identify properties with a new 'safe stay' indicator to allow hoteliers to clearly highlight the new standards they have implemented. As 'social distancing' and travel restrictions are eased, travelers have an added assurance that every effort is being made to keep them safe and healthy during their hotel stay.
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LNER Launches Socially Distanced Seat Reservations On Wednesday 17th June, LNER moved into the next phase of its industry-leading reservation only policy. LNER is now be able to offer seat reservations that are systematically socially-distanced from the next customer. Customers are able to sit in their assigned seat with the peace of mind that they are socially distanced from the next passenger. The system is designed around the 2m guideline but is agile enough to be amended should government guidance change. LNER has worked with ticket issuing system partners to ensure seat reservations are issued through agency booking systems for all new bookings irrespective of ticket type. On the rare occasion that a traveller does not hold a seat reservation or wishes to make a new seat reservation, LNER has built a real time seat reservation tool found at https://www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/make-a-reservation/. TMC travellers can make a reservation using the tool free of charge and a reservation can be made up to 5 minutes before a train’s scheduled departure. Some TMCs have implemented their own solution and reservations can also be made at LNER’s travel centres in stations if required.
ve n u e d i re c t o r y. co m L a u n c h e s S a fe Me e t i n g Da t a b a s e venuedirectory.com has enhanced its database to capture and include venues Safe Meeting policies. It will use its existing distribution channels to allow access to this data to all its current clients and to all industry partners who require this information free of charge. All venues globally will have the facility to upload the details about what their venue is doing to restore attendee confidence and to demonstrate, following the Covid-19 outbreak, that the venue has put into place the steps to ensure staff and delegates are safe to meet at their venue. There will be an icon on search results and within a venue profile to demonstrate the venue has a policy in place and this will make it easy for meeting planners to source venues that are suitable and ready to receive meeting delegates. Venues will be able to upload the details of their policy and a URL to the policy detail that should be located on their website, which is recommended to give access to the most up to date information. Venues please log in to our portal called myeventschannel.co.uk and update your venues details with you Safe Meeting policy details. Meeting Planners get in touch with us at response@venuedirectory.com if you need the data. ‘Covid-19 arrived with very little warning to the world of events and has decimated the industry overnight. The landscape of events going forward has got to change and we have all had to think very quickly as people review their Strategic Meetings Management Programme and update it as a result of the virus. It's important that we restore attendee confidence as quickly as possible and get the events industry back up and running and we believe our Safe Meetings policy area in our database will be a key pillar of restoring people's faith in meeting up again. Sharing the Safe Meeting information with everyone in the industry for free is very important for us, thousands of peoples jobs and lives rely on our industry and we need to do whatever it takes to get the industry back on its feet’. Michael Begley, Managing Director