These events ‘Streamlining Corporate Travel’ were held on 22 and 23 August in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively and were attended by over 270 travel industry and purchasing professionals from across the African Region. The events also received a record attendance of corporate procurement specialists.
Sessions included presentations from both the supplier and corporate perspectives on the effective implementation and use of self booking tools and the development of efficient pre-approval systems. The agenda also included a hotel and airline presentation on revenue and yield management in relation to corporate deals.
The highlight of the respective events, was most certainly the separate Corporate and Supplier Round Table sessions on Corporate Deals.
This session posed questions to both sectors such as whether in today’s dynamically priced market, delegates felt that there is still a financial benefit to supplier negotiated Corporate deals, or whether it is better to go with “best price on the day.” Delegates were also asked if they felt that their relationship with their supplier or client would suffer a loss of value-added benefits if no Corporate Agreement was in place and which sector should be responsible for identifying the need and then implementing a Corporate Deal.
Possibly one of the most interesting questions for debate in Johannesburg was when delegates were asked to rate, in order of importance, what they felt should be factored into the choice of a preferred supplier, looking at Product, Schedule, Availability, Price/Rate, BEE Policy and Relationship. Interestingly, the Corporate and Supplier feedback differed quite dramatically with Corporate buyers rating the most important aspect being Availability at 86 percent, with Product and Price rating at 41 percent and 48 percent respectively. Suppliers however felt that Product and Price rated the highest in importance at 81 percent and 68 percent respectively.
These events certainly highlighted the differences in perceptions between the sectors and thus aided in all parties being able to get a better insight and understanding into opposing views.
Europe Brussels
The September event in Brussels focused on traveler security, and an interesting finding, was that 40 percent of the delegates said that they rely on internal processes to cover their travelers security instead of employing a third party, even though 54 percent of the audience felt that they did not think that their travelers were prepared for the security issues they may encounter when traveling.
In light of the recent London events, it was interesting to note, that although everyone thought that travel time was affected by airport security, 75 percent of the audience would still choose to route their passengers through an airport that focuses on this issue.
Helsinki
The ACTE Helsinki event was our biggest Nordic forum to date and looked at emerging issues within the corporate travel buying community. As part of the session, a roundtable discussed upcoming travel trends in the Nordic Region with some interesting results: 82 percent of delegates advised that corporate travel was on the increase from 2005, and 85 percent of them have implemented a self-booking tool. 59 percent of the audience felt that savings have been achieved through the use of self-booking tools, although 56 percent of the audience did not mandate its use as part of their travel policy.
