IN CONVERSATION WITH: GERALDINE VALENTI, CWT

We speak to Geraldine Valenti, senior director, CWT Solutions Group EMEA, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, about managing travel in Asia.  

What does this role involve? 

I’m in charge of CWT’s consulting division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We are a group of 60 travel and expense experts helping corporations find value from travel and expense data.

Our expertise spans across four practices:

·       Data insights - we bring our customers the possibility to simplify the complexity of data for effective decision making

·       Supplier management - our clients get more from their supplier relationships, beyond sourcing. With expense data visibility we enable them to find new savings

·       Traveller engagement - drive programme savings by engaging with travellers in new ways

·       Mobility consulting - bringing our customers new opportunities for change in their travel programme from industry evolution

How long have you been with CWT? 

I’ve been with CWT for over 10 years. I was fortunate to work in several customer-facing roles over the course of my career both in Europe and Asia Pacific.

You’re speaking at the Business Travel Show about making a success of managing suppliers and service providers in Asia – why the focus on Asia right now?

Asia is one of the power houses of global economy, an increasing amount of businesses have dealings with this fascinating part of the world. It is a diverse region and to be most effective in managing your travel programme in Asia, you want to make sure you get the intricacies of the supplier landscape, communication techniques and diversity of opportunities and challenges.

What are the main differences between business travel in the UK and Asia?

Interestingly, I would say that some parts of Asia have grown so fast that they skipped the 2.0 phase and for example went from paper tickets to mobile QR code tickets directly. I’m looking forward to exploring more during the session with our audience.

What are you most looking forward to at the Business Travel Show?

Connecting with travel professionals from the UK and learning more about everyday challenges which CWT Solutions Group can help with. Also meeting our customers and hearing about industry evolution is very important and key to continuing to develop a relevant offer to the market.

What is next for CWT Solutions Group this year?

My priority is to continue to bring new offerings to an ever-evolving market focusing on travel and expense optimisation. We are also growing our presence in the UK market with a large team now established in our London office.

What do you think the biggest priority for travel managers will be in 2017?

The travel managers’ priority is to get value from data and seeing what can be changed with suppliers and travellers to gain savings and improve travel effectiveness.

You can catch Geraldine Valenti discussing: “Making a success of managing suppliers and service providers in Asia” in her masterclass at the Business Travel Show on Wed, 22 Feb, 10:00-11:00. Please visit www.businesstravelshow.com to register for a free visitor pass. 

GUEST BLOG: Chasing status

I write this fresh from my North American Neo roadshow, where I met some great people and collaborated on some amazing ideas that could shape the future of T&E. But that's a different story... This story is about a personal experience - of the very impersonal kind - that has come to crystallise the modern problems facing travellers of all ages.

I was staring at my Priority AAcess boarding pass in Minneapolis airport bound for Chicago. 

"Ladies and gentlemen this is an announcement we have 155 mega premium platinum status travellers and so anyone in grades 1 through 5 will now need to check in their hand luggage. We do not have a valet so your bags will probably get crushed in the hold and you'll need to wait 45 minutes at baggage claim - even though you spent the whole week living out of a small bag to avoid this very situation... Have a nice day".

Luckily my good friend Phil was at hand to calm me down with those immortal words 'Man, we're going to have to get you status!'

So where else, other than travel, does 'priority' actually mean 'second last' and where else does chasing status affect so many?

The creation of seemingly endless grades of traveller means that Road warriors (and yes that includes Millenials) are being covertly downgraded in order to keep up the chase for this ever elusive ‘status’. Open booking is simply allowing this crazy parallel universe to spiral out of control. Without proactive policy controls how can we resist the urge to spend just a little bit more to get those points?

But most importantly how we make this situation better?

Well, Neo is a good start. Neo treats everyone with the ultimate CEO status, at least at the booking stage. You just tell Neo where you need to be and when, and then Neo does the rest, just as an executive assistant would.

What it could also do is provide status hungry road warriors with the ability to control their own destinies.

Imagine if corporates started setting trip level policy.

Neo could provide the door-to-door baseline cost for each trip (think reference fare in old school language), including automatically calculated 'on trip' expenses. As long as the business value meets that expected cost, the traveller gets the green light.

That green light could also be accompanied by a vPayment limit that is aligned with that trip budget, so there's no need for individually settled costs and the dreaded wait for cash reimbursement. The traveller can then work within their own budget and trade off flight status for hotel points, empowering travellers to be their own walking P&L and to drive both company and personal success.

Best of all - when they got back from their successful trip, they wouldn't need to complete an expense report at all...

Trust goes both ways and empowerment makes us grow.

Now get back to chasing status.

This post was written by Oliver Quayle, KDS senior vice president, products and partners. KDS is exhibiting at the Business Travel Show, 4-5 February 2014 on stand B920. Register now for free at www.businesstravelshow.com.