Andy Hegley, UK General Manager Corporate Traveller.
Air travel bookings for the period August to October were up by 36% against the previous three months and hotel transactions increased by 33 per cent for the same period.
Corporate Traveller UK, specialists in managing travel for companies with an SME size annual travel spend of £50K to £2M, has continued to win significant new business since the start of its financial year on 1st July 2020 despite uncertainty about when business travel will resume fully post-Covid. The travel management company secured 42 new clients across diverse industry sectors and UK regions between July and October, with a combined annual pre-Covid spend of £18.7M.
Notably 50 per cent of these clients requested to sign two-year contracts with Corporate Traveller in order to meet heightened duty of care obligations due to the impact of the global pandemic on their travellers’ safety. This marks a major shift in Corporate Traveller’s usual servicing model as one of the TMC’s key differentiators in the SME space is that clients are not locked into any form of contract.
New clients include leading publishing group Hachette UK in London; Aquaterra Energy, leaders in offshore oil and gas engineering, headquartered in Norfolk; the University of Law in London; and Tyne & Wear-based GreCon Ltd, the UK’s leading provider of fire protection and industrial measurement systems. In the technology sector specifically, clients include CentralNic, a global domain and web services provider; and Investis Digital, a global digital communications and marketing company.
Corporate Traveller has also begun to see positive signs of customers resuming business travel. Air travel bookings for the period August to October were up by 36% against the previous three months and hotel transactions increased by 33 per cent for the same period. Companies in the manufacturing, technology and finance sectors make up a third of clients who are resuming travel. Offline hotel bookings also increased from 32 per cent in March to 59 per cent In October, as customers are increasingly seeking advice from their dedicated Corporate Traveller consultant before making a booking. Interestingly low-cost hotel bookings have dropped by 39 per cent as clients are shifting towards booking higher end properties to ensure travellers have access to facilities such as on-site restaurants, room service and 24-reception facilities.
Andy Hegley, UK General Manager Corporate Traveller commented: “Despite the impact of the global pandemic on the business travel sector, and even though the UK has gone into a second national lockdown, we have seen green shoots of business travel resuming and we have continued to win new business as SMEs are looking for greater personal support from their TMC. Traveller safety and duty of care have become top priorities for companies as they start to resume business travel, as well as those who kept travelling throughout the crisis. This is particularly relevant for SMEs as they don’t have a dedicated ‘travel manager’ and the person who owns travel may have multiple responsibilities. Pre-Covid, companies may have been booking their own travel, or using an online TMC, but post-Covid, they need specialist advice and support from a dedicated travel consultant, as well as technology solutions such as traveller tracking. Many of our customers are also now asking to sign contracts, so that they can feel reassured that they have the right duty of care measures in place because we are managing their entire travel programme in the longer term.”
Jonathan Hamill, Managing Director at Grecon Ltd, who appointed Corporate Traveller in July, and whose employees have continued to travel during the pandemic said: “The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak presented a significant global challenge to businesses. GreCon’s customers span several industrial sectors which were deemed critical during the pandemic, with examples of recycling, manufacturing and food production. These customers rely on our systems for their mission-critical operations, and we took steps to ensure we could maintain business continuity. We have relied significantly on the first-class service from the team at Corporate Traveller, who ensured we had appropriate accommodation. The sourcing of accommodation when many hotels were closed became a vital service to us, enabling our engineers to travel across the UK and Ireland, to attend customer sites and perform maintenance and repairs.”
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
