Willis Towers Watson's travel supplier category manager, Clare Francis (pictured),
and EMEA & APAC travel and M&E manager, Stephen Lascelles, are
jointly hosting a buyer masterclass at Business Travel Show Europe: Take your hotel relationship management to the next level post-Covid. Business Travel Show Europe takes place on September 30 and October 1 at ExCeL London. Click here to register for the free two-day event.
What’s the biggest challenge facing you as a buyer right now and why?
Traveling for business has become a lot more complicated in the past 18 months with the introduction of Brexit, PWD and A1 considerations, as well as the obvious Covid-related quarantine and testing requirements. However, since many colleagues haven’t travelled for an extended period of time, many of these new and confusing restrictions are still unknown to them, so education and communication are going to be a big part of our “reimagining travel” strategy. It’s no longer possible to make spur of the moment decisions to hop on a plane and visit an international client, which will come as quite a shock to many who have been used to doing this for years.
What do you expect your business travel volumes to look like post-pandemic?
We very much hope we don’t see our travel activity return to pre-pandemic levels and are working on a “reimaging travel” strategy to offer colleagues guiding questions that can help them determine whether a trip really is necessary. We want our colleagues to think more carefully about how travel actually supports their business objectives (ROI) and the impact it has on the environment and their own personal wellbeing, rather than simply doing it out of habit. Like many other large organisations, we have published our corporate sustainability goals and expect to see this have a significant impact on the number of internal and non-revenue generating trips being approved. Therefore, based on these factors and reduced budgets, I would forecast an approximate 70 per cent return to 2019 travel volumes by the end of 2022.
What support would you like to see from governments to get us all back on the road?
It is such a minefield with regards to ever-changing vaccine and quarantine requirements, as well as the introduction of new EU regulations, so the lack of standardisation across regions is certainly one of the biggest topics we would like to see governments align on.
What are you doing to make your travel programme more sustainable and why is this important?
Like many organisations, we have published our corporate sustainability goals and travel will play a major part in achieving these targets. We are working closely with our preferred travel partners on various initiatives, such as NDC, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and offset programmes to ensure that travellers are given more information to make better choices that minimise their impact on the environment.
Why are you looking forward to attending Business Travel Show Europe and meeting face-to-face once more?
The travel industry is very much about the people, and this will be one of our first opportunities to reconnect with our industry peers and revive our relationships.
Tell us in 25 words or fewer why buyers should attend your session at the show.
Find out more about hotel sourcing best practices and considerations in these unprecedented times. Has Covid finished off the annual hotel RFP? What’s next?
• Willis Towers Watson's travel supplier category manager, Clare Francis, and EMEA & APAC travel and M&E manager, Stephen Lascelles, are jointly hosting a buyer masterclass at Business Travel Show Europe: Take your hotel relationship management to the next level post-Covid. Business Travel Show Europe takes place on September 30 and October 1 at ExCeL London. Click here to register for the free two-day event.