Travel managers and TMCs face a whole new set of challenges compared to 2020 and 2019. Business travel volumes are unpredictable. The landscape has become more complex than ever and the workforce is lean, as Pascal Benn, a partner at Focus Travel, analyzes in an article published by Phocus Wire.
Creativity, agility and adaptability are the key to exploring new formats, uses and business opportunities in a changing and complex environment such as the one the hotel and tourism industry is going through as a result of covid-19. Based on our experience in the 39 establishments across the continent, we see how hotels and hostels have taken on a different role in the current context, including other uses and formulas that respond to current needs.
The year 2021 will be key for tourism. As the world recovers from the global economic crisis and borders begin to open gradually, predictions about the future of this key sector for the world economy are beginning to follow one after the other. Most of them agree that the real upturn will not come before the third quarter, due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.
Travel agencies often believe that human interaction is crucial to attracting and retaining travelers. More than 40% of travel agents surveyed by Amadeus for the study "From Human Contact to Human Technology," the first installment in the "Perspectives for the New World of Travel" series, ranked it as a top factor for success. The figure is even higher for agencies specializing in business travel. But contact is not synonymous with empathy.
Only 5% of employees contribute with ideas for improvement in the daily change of their company, a process in which only 30% of the workforce is involved, according to the latest study by the Kaizen Institute, an international consulting firm specializing in continuous improvement and process optimization. The work proposes a series of solutions in the daily management of projects to involve each of the professionals, turning the entire workforce into drivers of change.
To implement the services of a startup in the corporate environment, it is necessary to trust the traveling employee and his ability to manage his own budget, but it is the travel manager who has to lead the change. It is necessary to propose an adoption target, not only with the criterion of optimizing costs, but also valuing the quality of the service. There are usually good intentions, but little effectiveness when it comes to implementation. This is the last and final installment of the pioneering study in our country conducted by Forum Business Travel, in collaboration with Amadeus Spain.