Clive Wratten is chief executive of the UK's Business Travel Association
Today, I will represent the business travel industry on College Green outside London's Houses of Parliament alongside colleagues from across the whole travel supply chain in the UK.
We are calling on the government to review the catastrophe that is their traffic light system, to offer targeted support to an industry that remains in lockdown, and to recognise that our effective vaccine roll-out can make international travel a reality again.
It will be a Covid-safe event with a strict limit of 400 people in London. Other colleagues will hold their own events throughout the UK in Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast, Glasgow and online.
Across the industry, there is huge sadness and frustration that the travel sector’s voice has not been heard by government. It really didn’t have to come to this.
The BTA and other major industry bodies have tried to collaborate with the government to find effective ways to bring back safe international travel. We have banged the drum for the UK to lead the way in introducing international protocols, worked to bring in technology to increasingly create contactless journeys, and shown how managed trips can work seamlessly with Track and Trace.
And yet, this has all been to no avail. The debacle of Portugal’s move onto the amber list wasn’t just devastating for holidaymakers, but damaging for the UK’s reputation on the global stage.
Despite having one of the most advanced vaccine programmes, we now watch from the sidelines as our European counterparts travel widely. They’re not just having holidays, but travelling to meet face-to-face, doing deals and contributing to their countries’ economies.
Boris Johnson and the G7 leaders showed what can be achieved when brought together in one room, yet the same opportunities are not being afforded to British corporations.
Imagine the work that British businesses are missing out on due to quarantine, self-isolation requirements and inconsistent advice.
Our Business Travel Tracker revealed that in the second week of June alone, UK GDP lost £3.18 billion across ten key routes due to the lack of corporate travel.
That’s just the business travel impact on UK GDP. In reality, it is the bottom lines of our large corporations and SMEs that are being hit hardest.
I am proud of the way that the entire travel industry is coming together. It is vital that the hundreds of thousands of people who work across this vital sector are heard by the government.
If more countries aren’t added onto the green list on Thursday, I fear for the future of many travel businesses.
The business travel sector has slashed its businesses to the bare minimum and beyond. We have lost more than 50 per cent of our workforce, and we desperately need to keep those skilled people that remain if we are to return to travel at any scale.