*GUEST BLOG* Designing events for Millennials, Gen Z and below

By the end of 2020, Millennials are expected to dominate the global workforce (35%), while in the UK we are already seeing them reach this status (50%). Not far behind, Gen Z (mid-1990s – 2010s) are already having an impact on the way we structure our working lives, with their new-age mindset influencing business decisions such as hyper-connectivity and reassessing company ethics.

With generational change, comes a responsibility for event planners to consider new event formats and activities to align with their evolving demographic.

Having only known a highly connected world, Gen Z expect to consume information quickly and conveniently. Detailed presentations and lengthy meetings aren’t going to cut it, so event planners need to think creatively to maintain the quality of information absorbed without increasing the quantity.

This is what we call the ‘Experience Effect’. No longer will events be reviewed by the excess of their giveaways or the amount of information shared, but by the experience attendees had from pre-arrival to post-event. Greater attendee engagement leads to higher output, and a higher output leads to a greater return on investment.

Recognising these evolving changes, at ETM, we take these considerations seriously, which is why we map out the delegate experience from the very first touchpoint to the very last. 

We incorporate meaningful, high impact, technology such as customisable event apps, live streaming and digital walls into the overall event strategy, as an effort to drive engagement and improve efficiency.

App technology is becoming increasingly popular, with buyers recognising the value of connecting their delegates before they set foot at the venue. From instant messaging and social walls, through to gamification and pre-event information, apps can be used as the event’s foundation and provide a great source of digital information for effective ROI measurement.

For example, at the request of one customer to facilitate a more social environment for staff from various offices meeting for the first time, ETM developed a ‘social wall’ within the customer’s event app. Delegates were able to share photos throughout the three-day conference, and engage with others by liking or commenting. By replicating their usual social media habits, the delegates began to get to know colleagues in a way that felt familiar and un-forced.

App technology also encourages audience participation during speaker sessions, mitigating the issue of audience stage-fright, by allowing delegates to ask anonymised questions or provide comments. There’s also opportunity for speakers to upload FAQs prior to sessions to assist with any pre-empted questions. By doing so, event organisers can reduce the length of sessions, resulting in higher levels of engagement throughout.

But what about the other elements of an event? We are also observing new trends emerge in the format and theme of events, as businesses adhere to a heightened consideration of CSR. Afterall, studies show that societal impact and ethics are the most common reasons why Millennials change their relationship with businesses.  

Increasingly we are asked by customers to report on the environmental impact of their events, and to recommend a strategy to minimise this impact. In response, our travel analysis provides a carbon calculation so we can work out the most sustainable way for your delegates to travel. We also propose venues that are forward thinking and evidence their initiatives to becoming more sustainable.

Customers are also requesting that team-builds include activities with a charitable or ethical element. For example, organising plant-based cooking classes for your delegates could educate them on more sustainable food options that still taste great. If it’s good enough for the 2020 Oscars Ceremony, it’s likely to go down well for your delegates too. By using locally sourced ingredients from the area your event is hosted in, you are also supporting the local economy and giving delegates an authentic cultural experience.

While incorporating ethical elements into your event activities is a great way to engage your Millennial and Gen Z audience, it often involves a lot of time and effort. That’s why it’s important to partner with an event agency that has experience in creating tailored event solutions, recommending suppliers that align to your company’s values and initiatives, whilst considerately managing your budget.

Meet ETM on the CTM stand (B620) at Business Travel Show in London next month register for a FREE visitor pass www.businesstravelshow.com

To find out more about ETM, their services and the events industry horizon, register below to meet a senior member of the team or contact James Kent on 07384816638 https://info.travelctm.co.uk/business-travel-show-2020-book-a-meeting-with-etm

GUEST BLOG: Travel Technology Trends: 2020 and beyond from CTM Europe

Innovation and new technologies are changing the way we plan, travel and experience our trips. As a business traveller, it is ideal to stay up to date on the latest travel technology trends which can bring you heightened experiences. As we go into 2020, let’s look at some of the top technology trends from 2019, and what we can expect to see more of in the year ahead.

1. RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID)

RFID or radio frequency identification is a form of wireless communication that can be used to track objects equipped with an RFID-embedded chip. IATA recommends the use of the RFID technology for baggage tracking which provides real time baggage information that allows airlines to efficiently track the bag through all airport processes.

British Airways recently launched a digital reusable bag tag that seamlessly connects your luggage to your BA app. The digital TAG allows travellers to keep track of where the luggage throughout the baggage handling process and help reduce mishandling. From January 2020 the standard price will be £80.

2. SMART DEVICES

A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously. Travel industry players like hotels can make use of these devices to optimise guest experience and streamline operations.

Amazon has launched 'Alexa for Hospitality', designed to bring its voice assistant technology to hotel rooms. It simplifies tasks for guests like playing music, controlling in-room temperature or lighting, and even checking out. Alexa makes delivering a great customer experience simple.

3. KNOWN TRAVELLER DIGITAL IDENTITY (KTDI)

KTDI provides a frictionless travel experience for passengers while allowing them to have greater control over their personal data. The identity data that is usually stored on a chip on a passenger’s passport is instead securely stored and encrypted on their mobile devices. Passengers can manage their identity data and consent to share it with border authorities, airlines and other pilot partners in advance. Using biometrics, the data is checked at every leg of the journey until arrival at the destination, without the need for a physical passport.

The World Economic Forum and the governments of the Netherlands and Canada launch the first pilot project for paperless travel between the two countries at Montreal Airport. Still in its testing phase, the final project is expected to be rolled out at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Toronto’s Pearson international airports by early 2020.

Image Source: World Economic Forum

4. VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY

The travel industry has recently started to adopt virtual and augmented reality technology to increase customer engagements. Virtual reality provides travellers with guided tours of what they can expect which allow the travellers to digitally get into the virtual surroundings of the place they are going to visit, be it a hotel or a tourist spot.

Augmented reality is relatively handy and easier to access. By having a smartphone with the app and internet connection, travellers can find out more about the location, a building or a landmark they are in, in real time.

Hong Kong Tourism Board has joined hands with sky100 and virtual reality experience design house TimeLooper to introduce “VR Time Travel: Step into Old Hong Kong” micro films.

Google is launching its augmented reality walking directions feature for Google Maps. The Live View feature provides super-useful orientation by showing you arrows, and big street markers overlaid on the real scene in front of you.

5. 5G NETWORK

The 5G speed of data transfer will cause significant change and bring far-reaching benefits to your business trips. With 5G technology, the travel sector will become connected whether in transportation, culture or hospitality, this new generation of the wireless network will bring many improvements and technological advancements. The travel experience will become much more seamless and flexible than ever.

OPPO Australia has created the world’s first travelling 5G network powered smart hotel. The 5G hotel is powered off OPPO’s Reno smartphone with 5G network and packed full of the latest technologies, including 5G cloud gaming, an AR wardrobe and advanced smart home features.

CTM Europe is exhibiting at Business Travel Show 2020, which takes place on 26-27 February at Olympia London. Register now for free at www.businesstravelshow.com and pop by their stand B620. 

GUEST BLOG: Risks to Business Traveller Safety in 2020

According to the recent Business Resilience Trends Watch, 51% of respondents believe that health and security risks to business travel have increased in the past year. With concerns running high, it’s not surprising that many travel managers have expressed the need to change itineraries in 2020. 

Late last year, International SOS, the world’s leading medical and travel security services company, released their Travel Risk Outlook for 2020. Below, I unpack each risk and offer recommendations for travel managers to mitigate against them.

1.     Risks borne from geopolitical shifts 

The US Presidential election in 2020 will undoubtably influence the geopolitical trade industry with many nations. In Europe, political and social unrest runs a high risk as the Brexit outcome solidifies. Businesses must plan to ensure travellers are educated on changes to their free movement between nations, and gain access to the relevant travel documents ahead of time.

2.     Mental health issues 

Traveller wellbeing will be prioritised in 2020, with mental health listed as a higher risk to traveller safety than physical health for the first time since the release of this report. Helpful advice on reducing the stress of business travel can be found on CTM’s website to help improve mental health while on the road.

3.     Physical health

While mental health is gaining importance, physical health is still a key consideration when ensuring traveller wellbeing. Travel managers can help support physical health through hotel selection, focusing on brands and properties that offer fitness centres or healthy menus. Read more about Incorporating wellbeing into your travel policy.

4.     Cybercrime 

The cost of cyber-crime globally is expected to exceed $2 trillion this year, while data breaches can cost the average company around $US3.8 million¹. In 2020, it is increasingly important for business travellers to take precautionary measures to ensure no personal or company data is vulnerable to hackers. You can find tips for ensuring data security when travelling for business here.

5.     Climate change

The impact of Climate Change is an increasingly important concern for travel managers when ensuring duty of care. This is where travel technology such as tracking functionality can help, by identifying travellers in areas of risk and communicating with them instantly.

6.     Infectious disease outbreaks 

Another impact of climate change, along with increasing urbanisation, diminishing vaccination coverage and security instability, is risk of infectious diseases. While predominantly an issue for those travelling to developing nations, businesses should be aware of vaccination requirements and hygiene standards across their supplier list.

7.     'Bleisure' travel

Listed as a ‘grey zone’ of travel risk, blesiure travel and its implications for duty of care is highly relevant for European-bound travellers. Travel managers will need to ensure clear outlines on insurance parameters are included in employee contracts and advise when additional coverage may be required at the employees’ expense.

8.     Millennials and Generation Z 

Bringing a new set of values and expectations to the industry, Millennial and Gen Z travellers will push businesses to evolve their risk strategies. New policies will have to account for changing travel behaviours, including experiential components and a focus on longer stays at smaller costs.

9.     High profile Duty of Care legal cases

Expected to increase in 2020, businesses must ensure their travel policies are updated regularly to ensure duty of care obligations are met. This includes investing in travel technology that can help mitigate risk, educating employees about risks and communicating with employees during a crisis to name a few.

10. Start-ups and SMEs 

Often under-resourced and inexperienced SME businesses can struggle to meet duty of care obligations without proper guidance from a TMC. Virtual Account Management solutions can help small businesses access all the benefits of a customised travel programme, delivered and supported via phone and online support.

This post was written by Richard Ware, Senior Business Development Manager, CTM Europe. He will be attending the Business Travel Show, which takes place on 26-27 February 2020 at Olympia London.

You can register for a free visitor pass at www.businesstravelshow.com and book a meeting with Richard and CTM at https://info.travelctm.co.uk/business-travel-show-2020-book-a-meeting-with-ctm

GUEST BLOG: How to survive hotel RFP season

As you work through your annual hotel review and RFP process, you might want to consider incorporating procurement strategy, traveller feedback loops, comprehensive reporting data, and emerging industry trends into your hotel RFP process to ensure the health of your hotel portfolio, say global travel management company CTM.

With hotel rates expected to increase from 1-4% in 2019 and occupancy rates at the highest in recent memory, this hotel RFP season may be bumpier than others. It is imperative travel managers source and select key properties that improve the experience for travellers and drive savings for the company.

Here are CTM’s key tips for surviving your annual hotel RFP portfolio negotiations.

1. Get your bearings

Begin by combining expense and travel data to measure compliance, identify leakage trends to combat, and identify target markets to include or remove from your programme. Focus on high engagement locations with the potential for greater buying power and focus on markets with highest leakage to increase compliance. Also include traveller feedback loops and discontinue properties with poor ratings.

 

2. Define your buying power

By analysing reservation and expense data, you can identify trends to use at your advantage during the negotiating process. Some industry experts suggest that additional amenities, which have been a major negotiating point in the past, have been less of a priority this year. But do not discount the ability for the hotel experience to encourage, or detract, from traveller satisfaction.

3. Evaluate all available content channels

Work with a TMC who can provide you with consolidated, single channel access to emerging content channels, consortia rates, TMC available rates, chain access deals, member rates, website rates, and non-traditional solutions, that could positively impact programme performance and traveller satisfaction. Incorporating additional available rates within a limited portfolio of properties may reduce the number of individual properties that you will need to negotiate with directly.

4. Automate as much as possible
When you are ready to process your RFPs to designated markets and properties, seek the help of your TMC partner to automate the process as much as possible. This allows you to focus on portfolio strategy, traveller engagement elements, and driving overall programme value. Automation also greatly eases the rate audit process to ensure traveller access to your compliant rates. 

5. Plan ahead for leakage

As a begin and end point to this process, review your hotel policy to ensure that it drives compliance and supports the traveller experience. Look to include direct mitigate leakage and attrition when communicating your updated hotel portfolio to your travellers. By addressing items such as luxury properties for VIPs, rate caps for specific markets, newly included amenities of chain deals, you can mitigate rogue traveller behaviour for the next fiscal period. 

This post was written by CTM, who are exhibiting at the Business Travel Show in 2019 on stand B620. Register now for your free visitor pass at BusinessTravelShow.com 

Five steps to being GDPR-ready

25 May 2018 is less than six months away. Karen Janssen, CIO at CTM (Corporate Travel Management), has revealed the five steps you need to take now to ensure you are GDPR ready. 

1               Employee engagement

Make sure the people in your organisation who need to know about GDPR understand that the law is changing and the impact it will have on the company. Assign a Data Protection Officer – someone to take responsibility for data protection compliance.

2               Sort your existing data

Consider an information audit to document what personal data you hold, how you hold it, where it came from and who you share it with.

3               Privacy and procedures

Review your current privacy notices. Check your procedures to ensure they cover individuals’ rights. Look at how you seek, obtain and record consent and whether you need to make any changes.

4               Legal basis for processing personal data

Identify your legal basis for carrying it out data processing and document it.

5               Data breaches

Make sure you have the right procedures in place to detect, report and investigate a personal data breach.

This post was written by Karen Janssen, Chief Information Officer at Corporate Travel Management (CTM), a top ten global TMC exhibiting at the Business Travel Show in February. To register for a free visitor pass and meet up with CTM (stand B620) to discuss GDPR and all of your other travel management needs.  

GDPR: what it means and why we need to be on our best behaviour

Even if you’re not yet au fait with the ins and outs of what GDPR is and how it will affect your business, I’m assuming you’ve heard of it – from the abundance of news and online articles to the increased activity in your IT and customer management teams.

GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation and it’s a legal requirement from 25 May 2018, replacing the existing Data Protection Directive at European Union level and the UK Data Protection Act 1998. It applies to anyone handling data belonging to EU residents, which means it almost definitely will apply to your organisation.

Why is it being introduced? Partly because of globalisation and the increasing number of businesses operating multinationally, and partly because of the growing digital economy we all operate in. The introduction of GDPR means data protection laws will now assume a level of international consistency and they also class digital footprints - IP addresses, cookies, MAC addresses – as personal data for the first time.

Like all things, the digital revolution and the increased level of access to personal data has both pros and cons. For organisations, it means we can understand our customers better and provide communications that are better targeted and more relevant and valuable to our audiences. As a result, customers benefit from personalised content, tailored offerings, less spam and increased, more convenient, transaction speeds.

But the downside of so much personal data being stored online is that it can be at risk of misuse.

Following a number of high profile data breaches and global cyber attacks this year alone, it is clear that new levels of data protection and security are a requirement of today’s digitally connected world and why we in the business travel industry, as much as any other industry, need to be at the top of our game.

As an organisation that’s responsible for managing data on behalf of thousands of travellers, it’s crucial that we at CTM can reassure our travellers and our clients that this information is being collected, stored and used both responsibly and with each person’s consent. And that’s what GDPR will do: introduce an accountability-based framework for handling the way personal information is acquired, used and shared.

For businesses who fail to comply with GDPR, a breach of data use could result in fines of up to €20 million (about £18 million) or 4 per cent of annual turnover, whichever is greater.

25 May 2018 isn’t so far away - if you haven’t already started planning for GDPR, I would start now.

This post was written by Karen Janssen, Chief Information Officer at Corporate Travel Management (CTM), a top ten global TMC exhibiting at the Business Travel Show in February. To register for a free visitor pass and meet up with CTM (stand B620) to discuss GDPR and all of your other travel management needs.