When Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted on 14 April 2010 and sent a massive ash cloud across Europe, few would have anticipated the ongoing chaos the event would cause to the global aviation industry.

At the height of the disaster, more than 10 million people were stranded around the world as airports and airlines across Europe and the UK came to a virtual standstill. Five weeks after the initial eruption, flights continued to be affected in the wake of further volcanic activity.

Initially international flight schedules were cancelled for days, with the Continental European airspace gradually reopening six days after the first major eruption. The International Air Transport Association estimates the disaster cost commercial airlines more than $1.8 billion in lost revenue.

As the leading travel management company for SMEs in Australia, Corporate Traveller’s robust duty of care ensured thousands of corporate travellers were kept in touch, informed and safe throughout one of the most chaotic travel periods in airline history. As soon as Corporate Traveller teams were alerted of the ash cloud disruptions, travel managers immediately took a log of all affected flight bookings from the global distribution system to identify travellers who would need assistance. This process enabled travel managers to respond quickly and efficiently, ensuring they were able to contact as many people as possible within a short timeframe.

While many travellers were prepared to wait for clearer skies, our travel managers worked around the clock to help customers who urgently needed to travel. Almost all of our teams worked extended hours during the ash cloud disruption, ensuring each and every one of their clients who were either overseas or due to travel during that period was contacted. Our teams stayed late into the night so clients could be personally updated as soon as they woke up. For clients who were affected, our travel managers kept in regular contact with them or their nominated representative by phone or email – sometimes two to three times daily if required.

Throughout the crisis period, our travel managers were kept informed by emailed Travel Alerts, which provided the latest updates on news from around the world while our internal corporate communications team also sent through the latest industry updates on airport and airline activity. Travel managers worked closely with airline representatives and kept a close eye on airline websites to get the latest updates for flight schedules.

For some clients getting to Europe or returning to Australia by a particular day was critical during the Icelandic volcano disruptions. Waiting for normal services to resume was not an option. In these instances, our travel managers typically organised for customers to travel overland, to airports that were open and then fly to other airports en-route to their ultimate destinations. In some cases, getting from A to B involved a combination of any number of planes, ferries, trains or automobiles. Our people used creativity and well-honed travel management skills to solve problems. The ongoing disruptions highlighted the importance of having a dedicated travel manager like Corporate Traveller.

It’s a harsh reality that today’s business traveller moves in an uncertain world. That’s why the safety of your people can never be compromised. Corporate Traveller helps businesses manage risk through information and vigilance and provides traveller assistance 24/7 for safe and streamlined travel.

Your travellers are in safe hands with an expert on board.

Businesses should try to adapt their travel policy to suit the needs of their travellers and their corporate culture. The policy should also sit within your business’s cost parameters and be based on a solid understanding of how policy items affect your savings. Once defined, policies must be clear and concise. Clarity is particularly important when it comes to mandates.

1. Work with a dedicated travel manager

SMEs require specialist expertise from one person who understands a company’s unique travel patterns, its needs and cost parameters.

2. Create a cost savings travel plan

Ask your travel manager to assess how your business spends its travel dollars and then work out a plan to reduce those costs.

3. Develop a travel policy

Put together a program including policies everyone must abide by. The policy will include guidelines for booking accommodation, flights and car hire that will help to drive savings through the use of preferred suppliers.

4. Use preferred hotel suppliers

Ask your travel manager to assess your room night volumes and negotiate a competitive corporate rate with your preferred hotel chain.

5. Use advance purchase airfares

Mandate advance purchase airfares in your travel policy. A Corporate Traveller study shows businesses can save up to 72 per cent on the cost of their domestic air tickets if they book three weeks in advance rather than last minute.

6. Buy the right type of airfares

If your people regularly change their travel plans at the last minute consider flexible airfares – which can be changed without a hefty fee. Generally the return flight (destination to home) is the most likely to change so a flexible fare may be better suited for this trip.

7. Fly economically

Consider low cost carriers for short haul flights and minimum flying times for Business or First Class.

8. Use corporate car hire rates

Ask your travel manager about using a combination of dynamic pricing with Best Rate of the Day or a negotiated preferred partner rate. This will help to keep rates competitive for you no matter which way the market fluctuates.

9. Check the fine print on travel insurance

Offers of free travel insurance on credit cards or business policies often have capped medical or dental cover. A staff accident or an emergency during a business trip could end up costing a business hundreds of thousands of dollars without comprehensive cover.

10. Hold regular reviews with your travel manager

Work with your travel manager to assess the success of your travel policy through benchmarking. Your travel manager will identify opportunities to reduce costs by looking at travel policy compliance, missed savings or advance purchase airfares.

If you want advice on how to improve compliant behaviour in your business, contact your travel manager.

Compliance also relates to metrics and culture, both of which can help to generate travel cost savings in different ways. If you can’t measure how compliant your travellers are, or you’re unsure if your business has a culture that’s geared towards cost savings, improving your company’s overall travel performance could be challenging.

There are a range of strategies that SMEs can use to boost companywide compliance. These range from policy consulting, traveller training and education, incentive-based rewards for compliant behaviour and data analysis designed to identify opportunities for missed savings. In addition, Corporate Traveller’s online booking tool has an extremely robust Best Fare of the Day capability, which captures missed savings and traveller details when non-compliant fares are booked. Pre-trip approval is another strategy that can be used to contain costs. Corporate Traveller recommends SMEs work closely with their travel managers to determine which pre-trip approval process best suits their needs.

If you want advice on how to improve compliant behaviour in your business, contact your travel manager.

Increase compliance and improve consolidation

Having a single point of contact to take care of every requirement, including bookings, insurance, visas, invoicing and the negotiation of fares and hotel rates streamlines your travel booking process, increases compliance and improves consolidation.

Fares dashboard

Through your travel manager you have access to a fares dashboard that offers the best price on airfares, hotels and car hire.

Best Rate of the Day

Our corporate hotel programs ensure you receive the lowest available price.

Greater efficiency

There is no need to spend time on your own online price comparison searches – we do the hard work for you.

Traveller security

With a centralised booking process you have the security of knowing where your people are at all times.

Achieve long-term savings

Your travel manager will source the right type of airfare (restricted or flexible) to suit your individual needs.

Our travel managers will take the time to get to know your business and learn your company’s unique travel patterns, needs and cost parameters. They’ll also get to know individual travellers within your business, their routines, reasons for travel, expectations and what their specific needs are.

Corporate travel manager Romaine Goodwin believes the first step in building a strong foundation with her clients is to communicate regularly and work hard on becoming a part of their ‘team’.

“I keep in touch with my clients on a regular basis … I think it’s crucial we develop strong relationships with our client and their travellers, as this helps us to gain an in-depth knowledge of their travel program and any special requirements they have.”

Romaine looks after the travel needs of project management consultancy Point Project Management. She said that time spent with the company as part of a team building activity on the slopes at Perisher was an excellent way for her to get to know the Point Project Management team.

“This activity wasn’t just about meeting my clients outside the office, it was more an exercise in relationship and knowledge building that suited the corporate culture of the individual client,” Romaine said. “Relationship building can be approached in different ways and it’s a matter of working out what approach suits you and your business best.”

Romaine said the team building day made her feel part of their team and had given her a much deeper and broader understanding of Point Project Management, its people and culture.

“This helped to build a two-way street for trust and understanding which I believe are key to effective corporate travel management.”

Romaine is one of the many corporate travel managers across the Corporate Traveller team who is dedicated to delivering a service that’s personal and truly tailored to her client’s needs.

Corporate Traveller learning and development specialist Donna Howton said the proactive culture of learning at Corporate Traveller ensured its travel managers offered expert product knowledge and customer service.

Donna said Corporate Traveller provided learning and development through its ‘three E’s’ (experience, exposure and education) learning philosophy which meant providing travel managers with exposure to different learning methodologies outside of basic instructor-led style training to hone their skills.

Corporate Traveller’s training and development leader Alison Causebrook said Corporate Traveller’s service standards and consistency were also measured through regular client surveys and by team leaders through ‘one-on-one’ performance reviews and weekly business meetings.

“We train our travel managers to be small business owners in providing a seamless end-to-end customer experience through their product and travel industry knowledge,” Alison said. “Our leading market position draws on a combination of expert personal service and global negotiating strength, all underpinned by our unique culture of ownership and accountability. And our internal wholesaling divisions provide greater avenues to source the best fares, hotel and car hire prices, which is unparalleled in the market.

“We also work closely with our preferred partners and dedicated product managers to ensure our travel managers are up to date with the latest and most competitive offerings on a daily basis.”

Image courtesy of www.treehotel.se

Take the Treehotel in Sweden for example, a hotel that offers tree-house accommodation with six themed rooms. One lodge is built like a UFO wedged in-between trees. Another room called the Mirrorcube is a box built around a tree trunk with an outside made from reflective glass. Or you could stay at the Propeller Island City Lodge in Belgium, which offers a wide range of individually designed rooms. Guests can choose from a coffin room, an upside down room, a mirror room, a prison cell, a padded cell or several other unique options.

If you’re going to be staying in Australia, the Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy with its underground rooms has its own earthy character. Or you could book an Old Jail cell at Mount Gambier in South Australia. Across the Tasman, the rooms at the Hobbit Motel in New Zealand take a leaf out of popular film Lord of the Rings tale and feature accommodation with a hobbit hole design.

Image courtesy of Desert Cave Hotel - www.desertcave.com.au

Some accommodations even give a new meaning to the concept of recycling. The Jumbo Stay Hotel in Sweden is made from an old jumbo jet. The 21-room Hotel de Vrouwe van Stavoren in the Netherlands offers cosy rooms created from recycled wine casks, while the Das Park Hotel in Austria offers rooms made from converted giant concrete pipes.
And then there’s the hotels that incorporate the natural environment, with a hotel in Canada made entirely from ice, one in England from sand, and if that still doesn’t excite you try the Hotel de Sal in Bolivia, which is made entirely from salt.

Airfares for Qantas and QantasLink domestic services booked on or after15 February 2012 for travel on or after 1 July 2012 will now include a one-way carbon surcharge. The surcharge ranges from $1.82 for distances up to 700kms to $6.86 for distances over 1901kms. The carbon price will be applied per passenger,  per sector.

From15 February 2012 Qantas began applying a $3.50 one-way surcharge per person and per applicable sector for bookings made in Australia for flights to and from London.

Jetstar has increased domestic fares by $10 to cover the costs of increased fuel prices and the Australian carbon pricing system.

Virgin has announced a new carbon pricing scheme for its Australian domestic services, varying from $1.50 to $6 per sector depending on the route. The carbon surcharge applies to flights booked from 1 March 2012 for travel on or after 1 July 2012.

Virgin’s alliance partner Etihad Airways have started charging a $3 fee from 1 March 2012 for flights in and out of the EU.

Delta Airlines has also adapted to the carbon pricing scheme and is now surcharging USD$3 for flights in and out of the EU.

It is expected that more airlines will follow with surcharge increases to reflect the carbon pricing schemes over the next few months.

The carrier has been focusing on improving services for passengers flying on the high demand east-coast corporate routes including Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. New initiatives include a Virgin premium valet service and dedicated check-in at Melbourne and Brisbane domestic terminals and a concierge service at the Gold Coast and Canberra airports. Virgin’s facilities at the Sydney and Melbourne domestic terminals are also being expanded.

Virgin is also developing a new in-flight business class entertainment system. Guests on Virgin’s business class will be able to access movies, TV shows and audio entertainment using Samsung Galaxy tablets. The carrier expects to finish installing this business class entertainment system across its 737 and Embraer fleets by April 2012. A new Wi-Fi system that will enable passengers to download content onto their own handheld devices is expected be introduced by the end of 2012.

The airline has also increased its service offering for leisure travellers, having opened a new weekday route between Brisbane and the Whitsunday Coast.

Recently also implemented was an extra bonus for frequent flyer members. Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia have further assimilated their frequent flyer programs. Customers are now able to redeem their frequent flyer points across any company in the Virgin family, making inter-airline travel easier and more cost-effective for customers.

When was the last time you gave your travel program a thorough health check? If it’s been a while, now is the perfect time to assess how your business travel performance is tracking.

Corporate Traveller believes there are four main steps to giving your business a health check, with your travel policy the first place to start.

1. Travel Policy

a)     Finetune your policy

b)     Communicate the policy effectively

c)     Use preferred suppliers

d)     Make the policy black and white

e)     Compare your results

f)      Address out-of-policy bookings

g)     Streamline bookings

2. Airfares

a)     Book in advance

b)     Buy the right airfare

c)     Use BFOD (Best Fare of the Day)

d)     Fly economically

e)     Use lounge discounts

f)      Assess booking changes

g)     Manage air credits

3. Hotels

a)     Assess accommodation patterns

b)     Use preferred hotels

c)     Look for consistencies

d)     Factor in ancillary services

e)     Use our hotel programs

4. Car hire

a)     Tap into our car hire rates

b)     Consider membership programs

c)     Use GPS systems

d)     Get the right advice

e)     Check travel Insurance

A professional health check by one of our corporate travel experts will help to identify new opportunities for savings on your air, hotel or car hire spend. A travel health check is also a great way to create or review your travel policy with your travel manager to identify where ongoing or long-term savings can be made.

To read more about each of the four steps click here (pages 6-7) – alternatively, please call one of our expert business managers on 1300 732 280 for a free appraisal.