GUEST BLOG: Sustainability in Travel: 2020 Outlook

At CTM’s recent Supplier Speed Dating event, themed ‘Sustainable Travel’, we were thrilled to learn of the exciting initiatives our suppliers are working on to provide more sustainable business travel experiences for our clients.

While the concept of ‘green travel’ has been circulating the industry for over a decade, only recently has technology developed far-enough to provide practical solutions to this increasingly important subject.

One example gaining momentum is a promise from airlines who are aiming above and beyond carbon-offsetting to carbon-neutral targets. Ambitious plans from British Airways and parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) hope to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 through more fuel-efficient aircraft, smarter operational techniques and switching to biofuel.

United Airlines has also committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission by 50% by 2050, while Virgin Atlantic has announced a more recent target of 30% reduction by 2021.  

On the ground, car transportation company Carey is tackling CO2 by investing in electric fleets – all new vehicles bought from December 2019 will be electric. Already the company has seen an 18% fuel reduction since providing training to drivers on environmentally friendly driving techniques such as gliding when available instead of constant acceleration. 

However, nothing can beat the sustainability results of rail service providers such as Eurostar and LNER. Eurostar’s progress in this area has been outstanding, and they continue to strive for even better. From 1^st January 2020, Eurostar will plant a tree for every train that departs – an estimated 20,000 trees per year. They are also donating all un-bought food from the onboard cafes to charities and all left behind blankets to animal shelters for the winter.

In the hotel space, Travelodge, Accor and IHG have committed to eliminating single-use plastics such as bathroom amenities, food items and packaging. New CTM partner Wyndham hotels announced an interesting initiative to incentivise guests to be more sustainable by offering more rewards points for sustainable acts such as not replacing towels and bedding and reducing electricity use.

As sustainable business travel becomes increasingly important for businesses, vetting your travel providers can be a great place to start. With a range of new commitments from suppliers to improve sustainability within the industry, now is a great time to review your travel programme to ensure it hits sustainability targets, while providing an exceptional travel experience for your travellers.  

CTM is exhibiting at Business Travel Show in 2020 on stand B620 - please click here to register for a free visitor pass to the show, which takes place 26-27 February 2020 at Olympia London. 

Traveller Wellbeing – Who owns the travel time?

By Matthew Holman, Head of Traveller Wellbeing at Capita Travel and Events.

It’s 03:00, I am in bed at home and my alarm goes off. It is time to get up.  This is not a ‘normal’ day.  It is a business travel day and I need to fly to Amsterdam for a meeting.  I have to catch the 06:40 flight from Heathrow to arrive in Amsterdam at 09:05.  My meeting is in the city at a client’s office from 11:00 until 13:00. 

Now, here is my quandary: during the booking process I know that my company policy is to book travel at the lowest cost. I check for my return flight. The more convenient 15:00 departure is available, but costs £160, whereas the 21:15 is also available and costs just £67 (saving £93 for my company), but costing six hours of ‘my time’.  I am cost conscious for my organisation (it’s in policy) so I choose the later flight.  This now means that I land at Heathrow at 21:30, with all my best hopes that I clear security, head to the (lowest cost) car parking option and return home by - at the earliest – 23:00, before hoping to fall straight into bed and sleep. 

From getting out of bed to getting back into bed I have spent 20 hours of my 24-hour day.

This brings forward two questions:

1. When does my work day start?
2. Who owns my travel time?

The European Working Time Directive states the following entitlements for employees:

• An average of 48 hours ‘working’ in the working week 
• 11 hours of rest a day and the right to one day off each week 
• The right to a rest break if the working day is longer than six hours

In relation to travel time, the regulations state: Travel time to and from work is not usually counted as working hours. However, travel as part of the employee's duties is.

So, what is the answer to the question? Does my trip to Amsterdam belong to me or is it owned by my company and, therefore, have I already worked 20 of my 48 hour (average) this week?  We then bring up other questions as well:

1. Do I get time to recover before my next trip/working day? 
2. Does my company recognise how long my day is?

If we compare a business travel day to my normal working day, the patterns are very different. I know when I need to leave to get to the office, I know what time I will be working from – to, and what time I will get home. All is very clear.

The above was my life for 20 years. I was a very frequent traveller, and day trips to Europe were perfectly normal and expected as part of my job in sales. I didn’t mind, but also didn’t recognise the long-term impact until I had my own personal mental health crisis in 2016, caused by fatigue, burnout and an unsupportive organisation. This must change and these questions must be addressed.

What our data tells us about travel time

Looking at how long our customers travel within the day, 19% of the return trips undertaken this year are on the same day - with 14% of them being UK domestic flights and 5% to / from Europe. The average duration of these flights vary from just under one hour in the UK, to just under two hours for flights to Europe – add to that the journey time to / from the airport and the one hour pre-flight check in cut off - a same day return trip can incorporate anything from four to eight hours (or more) of travelling, which does not leave a lot of productive time for travellers to do the job they actually travelled to achieve in the first place.

When looking at the times of travel, then 18% of trips take place during unsocial hours (before 7am or after 7pm). In the UK this is less prevalent, with only 10% of trips, but increasing to 20% for European trips.

Lastly, there is the question of whether it is reasonable to expect your employees to spend part of their weekends travelling for work. Overall, 15% of trips undertaken this year have departed or arrived on a weekend (outbound Friday - Sunday or inbound Saturday - Sunday). When looking at the destination we have less weekend travel on UK domestic trips, with 7% incorporating a weekend, and see an increase to 15% for European trip.  

If we take this further and look at the difference of time spent travelling via air vs rail, we can see some routes don’t have much time difference. For example, Edinburgh to Manchester has just a 10-minute time difference yet rail costs less than half the air cost! By switching to rail for ‘long journeys’ it could aid productivity and health with the ability to move around and alleviate the stress that comes with airport security and queues.

Taking a smarter working approach

I manage my life differently now, not least by trying to live by the Capita Travel and Events’ Smarter Working practices and applying the Five Ways to Wellbeing framework.

When I must attend a meeting – especially overseas – I consider the following:

1. Ask and check if the trip is absolutely necessary
2. Try to work around sociable hours for travel. Whilst being conscious of the trip cost, I now also put greater emphasis on the cost of my time
3. Plan as far in advance for the trip, know my itinerary and have everything confirmed
4. When I travel, I sleep whenever I feel tired (I can nap 2-3 times a day).  I keep hydrated with plenty of water, and I try my best to eat light meals and nothing too heavy. 
5. On a day trip, I will try and walk as much as possible during the day to keep active
6. Take time on my return to rest well, recover and prepare for the next activity.

Capita’s Five Ways to Wellbeing when travelling for work highlights the importance not only of being active and healthy, but also keeping connected with friends, family and colleagues, and doing everything you can to be at your best.

We use it to help organisations shape their travel programmes to what matters really to their travellers’ wellbeing, but it is also a practical and common-sense way to think about the things you can do to take personal ownership of time on the road.

We have recently incorporated Smarter working dashboards for our customers so organisations can see the impact on people and making necessary changes.

All of these initiatives are one step closer to raising awareness, understanding and solving the challenge of who owns the travel time and how it can be optimised for both traveller and the organisation.

Capital Travel and Events is exhibiting at Business Travel Show, the international event for business travel, taking place 26-27 February 2020 at Olympia London. Visitor registration is open now at https://www.businesstravelshow.com/register

GUEST BLOG: Is Your Travel SuperCaliFragilisticExpialiDocious?

Spit spot. Your travel agent just booked your flight along with the expected hotel accommodation. Everything is practically perfect in every way, right? Well almost. The difference between a good trip and the most extraordinary one comes down to how three key ingredients manifest on your mobile phone: irresistible destination content, sensible user experience and indubitable dynamic communication channels.

It begins with a quest to discover ‘what to do’ and then ‘how to do it’ as soon as you have booked your flight and lodging. This isn’t an insignificant question when you consider the volume of travel taking place:

In 2017, a study of outbound tourism found that the average UK resident was abroad for a total of 10.2 nights, and spent £616 while there. In total, 72.8 million trips were taken, amounting to £44.8 billion spent abroad by tourists from the UK.  Conversely according to Visit Britain, the 39.2 million overseas visitors who came to the UK in 2017 spent £24.5 billion – both setting records. These figures represent a 4% increase in volume and 9% (nominal) increase in value compared with 2016.

Next, toss in a myriad of sites all declaring they have the answer to your destination needs.  But navigating all of this disparate content without the ability to weigh previous travel behaviour or current context feels like a ‘piecrust promise’ – easily made then broken, Miss Poppins herself would say.

Lastly, how we learn about all of the delightful accoutrements that can make or break one’s trip require that the communication surrounding them ‘step in time’. In other words, the delivery of push notifications, text messages, and email about ways to enhance and tailor your journey have to operate in a perfect symphony.

Good news, anything can happen if you let it. Truly. Travel agencies like Travel Up, Uniglobe and Wexas within the United Kingdom are already tapping into the latest mobile capabilities and best practices thanks to the Amadeus Mobile platform. This same white label platform powers CheckMyTrip, now the World’s Leading Travel App as of 2018, and is available to travel agencies worldwide to service and delight their travellers wherever they go.

It takes a village to successfully deliver a world-class travel app experience across content, user experience and multiple channels. Hence, Amadeus is cultivating the best and brightest global content and technology partners across activities, dining, parking, transfers, tours and more through the Amadeus Mobile COLLECTIVE to help travel agencies access everything they need to own and operate their travel apps so their travel clients enjoy the most productive and memorable journey.

Do you have a travel app, but not sure how to take it from good to brilliant? Well begun is only half done according to Mary Poppins. Pop by the Business Travel Show & Travel Technology Europe on 20-21 February at Olympia London to hear from top experts cultivated by Amadeus on the breaking trends and best practices defining the present as well as shaping the future of travel.

This post was written by Michelle Batten and her job title is Global Head of Marketing for Mobile, Amadeus. Register for your free visitor pass now at www.businesstravelshow.com