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RIP: the traditional corporate travel policy?
The traditional corporate travel policy is rapidly becoming defunct. In the first of two articles on this major upheaval in managed business travel, Stanley Slaughter looks at why this is happening
If anyone doubts that managed business travel is undergoing a major upheaval, there were two unmistakeable pointers at the Business Travel Show in London last week. In the excellent session Is Travel Policy Dead?, two of the four panellists announced that it was, at the very least, “dying”.
A more chilling and fundamental analysis came from Paul Tilstone, managing director of GBTAGlobal Business Travel Association: formerly the NBTA (National Business Travel Association) and renamed in February 2011. It provides its members (business travel management professionals) with education and information Europe and moderator of the session. Addressing the travel managers, he said: “Power is now in the hands of those you previously sought to control.”
That in essence sums up what is happening. In an incisive article on the subject, two US business travel experts Scott Gillespie and Evan Konwiser have spoken of a “major shift” in managed travel. More accurately it is a major shift of power.
In the past business travellers (the vast majority except for a handful of rogue travellers) have used the hotel, airline and car hire company booked for them by their employers through their TMCTravel Management Company: An agency which manages business travel for a company.. But two aspects of this process are changing.
The first is the growing dissatisfaction of these preferred suppliers. These are selected on the back of deals which offer the company discounts in return for volume. These deals are becoming less attractive to the suppliers which feel the promised volumes are not being delivered consistently enough. This can be brushed aside by buyers when travel is at a low ebb and suppliers need the business but is far less welcome when volumes are increasing.
The second is that travellers are feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the straitjacket in which these often mandated policies trap them. New technology, such as smartphones, give travellers on the road more opportunity of finding out what flights, hotels are available. The social networks also help them communicate this to fellow travellers.
These networks are increasingly used to change itineraries, often without recourse to the travel manager. It is the younger travellers - the digital natives - those who have grown up using technology rather than the older generation who have adapted to it, who are leading this move away from adherence to traditional policy. For them using this technology is second nature and attempts to control it are becoming fruitless.
Travellers are consequently demanding a lot more freedom in how they travel and suppliers are ready to give it to them. Witness how airline or hotel advertising is now often aimed not at the company but at the individual flyer or guest. They concentrate on the extras - the little differences each offers in a bid to appeal to a travellers’ individual tastes. This has little to do with corporate deals and is more likely to undermine them.
Travellers not only want this freedom but armed with smartphones and contacts on the social networks can go out and get it.
But this is not to advocate the end of managed travel. One of the speakers at the BTSBusiness Travel Show (formerly the Business Travel and Meetings Show) session, April Bridgeman, senior vice president with BCD Travel made this point clearly. While stating that “travel policy is dying as we currently refer to it”, she said this offered a “greater opportunity to be more effective in how we manage travel for corporates”.
The first and perhaps most obvious point about traditional travel policies is that they can be huge documents which needed slimming down. Rob Hughes, EMEAEurope, Middle East and Africa travel manager and expense programme manager for salesforce.com, told the BTS session that he was in the process of cutting his 24 page document down to nine pages and, eventually, to one or two pages. “Travel policy is not dead,” he said, “but it is in need of an overhaul.”
Both Bridgeman and Hughes said that a lot of the information needed for travellers was available, often in better and more up to date form, from smartphones than in travel policy documents. Hughes pushed the point home by claiming the importance of email would shrink as the use of social networking and smart phones increased.
This is a different world from the one in which travel managers imposed what Hughes called a “command and control policy”. If the managers do not adjust and adapt to this, they do so “at their peril”, he warned.
But faced with what some used to mandating policy might see as a revolt – a huge rise in the number of ungovernable rogue travellers – what are they to do? The smart ones have already located their first move. But there are several other moves they can make as well.
Read the second part of this analysis by clicking here
Comments
What a load of tosh! If corporates are experiencing issues with travellers wandering off and 'doing their own thing' then that is just down to the travel manager not doing their job properly. If a traveller in my company does not adhere to the hotel policy, they don't get their expenses reimbursed - It's that simple.
Hi Anon-E-Mouse. I think this article doesnt wholy reflect the full debate and Stanley has chosen just one aspect. Certainly the Coca-Cola buyer was of the same opinion as you. But the Salesforce buyer wasnt saying that he was reacting to travellers pushing back, rather that he recognised that giving the traveller more flexibility didn't actually cause them to lose out financially or otherwise. The issue cannot be summed up in a single column, but neither too can it be dismissed with a single "simple" statement as you have. If major companies are taking this approach then there's got to be something worth investigating here. It may not suit your company culture but to dismiss it out of hand for others in the industry misses the point.
You might check with an HR lawyer because there can be legal issues with denying recompensation to employees.
That kind of thinking will created unsatisfied employees. Today's travel is hard enough as is. As a frequent traveller I don't expect my company to pay for luxury or Mrs. Obama like travel expenses, but for example I personally do look for hotels that have good fitness facilities. That is something that is very important to me. I need to be able to get in a few good workouts on a trip. A little tiny room with treadmill and a pilates ball does not constitute a gym. In my case, my health/fitness is a high priority.
The point is that international business travellers want to be able to find hotels that will provide their preferred amenities.
Another example, I like flying on one airline even if it costs $50-100 more on a domestic flight or $100-200 on an international flight. Why? Because I get upgraded, if a flight gets cancelled I get priority for re-routing, and I get more points. As a company you are asking me to give up evenings at home and give up weekends with my family while I'm out on the road. If a company were to force me to use only hotels they pick or constantly vary which airline I can fly on, then I would be looking for a new company to work for.
On the one hand unemployment is way up and that may lead you to believe that dissatisfied employees won't find something else, but the fact is that high caliber employees are as much or more in demand than ever. We will go to a company that is more flexible and understands today's traveller.
I think you need to revisit your attitude and consider the fact that you might save a few bucks here and there by forcing employees to a strict and narrow travel policy, but you will lose your best employees. Work isn't just about bringing home a pay check. It's about finding fulfillment and purpose in what we do. Being a frequent traveller is also a particular lifestyle that has its perks and it definitely has its downside.
As a company you want to maximize the perks and minimize the downside, and you can do that without incurring too much additional expense via what this article talks about.
The need for instantaneous and adaptable travel flexibility and the familiarity of younger business adopters with new technology is leading the drive to adoption of virtual business worlds as collaborative working and meeting spaces where rapid and instant changes can be made without the participants even leaving their desks or offices.
Company travel policy is being heavily influenced by the need to drive down travel costs, reduce accommodation, meeting and conferencing venue costs, decrease executive stress and time spent away from office and home. Increasingly, face to face meetings come under pressure in the corporate efficiency calculation. According to YouGov research, UK employees think 37% of face-to-face meetings are a waste of time.
The more environmentally savvy companies are also looking to strategies to visibly reduce their carbon footprint and boost their green credentials.
The overhaul of corporate travel, with all but essential air travel being restricted by many global businesses, record fuel prices, fuel shortages and winters of late in the UK for example have further reinforced the arguments for radical re-thinking of the concept of travel for face to face meetings.
Virtual worlds, once only the province of the social arena in ventures like Second Life, have now become exciting new secure private and completely adaptable enviroments for business meetings, conferences, exhibitions, brand marketing and fan-base building, as well as effective spaces to interact with customers and potential clients.
Business Virtual world providers create a forward vision where emergent technologies will become the pivotal point in creating easily adaptable, changeable and flexible instant meeting environments freeing up corporate travel policy and solving cost reduction issues at the same time.
Virtual environment travel policy is effectively not to travel at all when collaborative shared meeting and interaction opportunities can be created at the click of a mouse without disruption or delay to the corporate working day
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