Expert insight: The services of a good TMC have never been so important for UK plc

Travel management companies have always been key to saving clients money, and now a good TMC is more important than ever in the fight to keep businesses afloat and the UK economy going, says Focus Travel Partnership CEO Abby Penston.

"The news of the change in quarantine policies and FCO advice to Spain this week has been deeply frustrating for all those impacted by it – including TMCs – and those with leisure arms.

Consumer confidence and attempts to kick start travel has taken another blow. But safety first is the key principle. This summer was never going to be easy and we in the industry have to become adaptable as we work our way through the complexities of attempting to control a pandemic and progress responsibly if we are to emerge successfully.

I recently took an airport tour of London Heathrow with British Airways and I was so incredibly impressed with the measures our industry has implemented to ensure travellers safety. Travel is not to be feared at all and I can confidently promote the airport experience there. But it is not the only piece in the travel jigsaw – destinations also need to behave responsibly in handling the pandemic in their back yard and local governments need to be transparent.

Yes, it feels like one step forward and two steps back but we have to keep taking those steps forward responsibly and that’s the key thing here or we will never make progress.

I will say it again, the role of a responsible TMC is invaluable to ensure that travellers’ needs are met from booking through to their return travel home.

As a business travel consortium with 60 TMC partners who all had thriving businesses at the beginning of 2020, we wanted to track recovery as border restrictions started to ease. We have now conducted two surveys since the end of June (29 June to 3 July and 6-17 July), and just before this current setback with Spain, I was encouraged to see the results of the recovery so far. 

Bookings are steadily growing

Business for our partners is still a fraction compared to this time last year, but the number of bookings for each sector is steadily growing. 

In the second survey we have seen a jump in the number of partners to make bookings. Ninety-four per cent of partners compared to compared to 85% in the first survey booked flights.

There was also a dramatic – 19 percentage – increase in accommodation bookings with 92% of partners saying they booked hotels, serviced apartments and AirBnB.

The second Covid-19 Recovery Survey also found that 50% of the partners booked rail – up from 33% and 58% booked car hire or chauffeur driven vehicles – up 10 per cent from the first survey. 

Recovery is being helped by the fact that 96% of our partners are reporting that they have started to receive refunds from airlines for tickets affected by Covid-19 cancellations, but on average partners are still waiting for £56,520 from airlines.

Overall, Europe was found to be to the top region for bookings taken collectively by partners with 53% of travellers heading to destinations across the Continent. A further fifth of bookings were taken for UK & Ireland (not included as Europe).

It is clear that there is strong demand for travel services with watertight duty of care. Even though air corridors have not been agreed with much of the Middle East, Asia and North America, the number of people travelling for business with Focus Travel Partners to these areas during 6-17 July was over 600. Nine per cent of travel was to North America. However, nearly half of our partners – 49% – believed that quarantine measures had and are having a major impact on business travel.

We believe the majority of those travelling to non-air corridor destinations are essential workers exempt from quarantine. Two-fifths were in the construction, engineering, marine and offshore energy sectors. But whether corporates have essential or non-essential teams needing to travel, the Covid environment is still very volatile, and it is vital that corporates have responsible, knowledgeable TMCs they can rely on to provide them with precise, up to the minute details of border restrictions and requirements.

But the fact that so many of the bookings are for destinations outside of the current air corridors not only reflects the globalised nature of the UK economy but also proves just how complicated travel is right now. It is still disappointing that the US have applied restrictions to travel from the UK and whilst we have become accustomed to an array of baffling instructions over this pandemic period, the ones for the USA, where we do so much business, are even more so.

I’m aware that there are a number of airlines who are lobbying the US government over their policies, so while we are becoming accustomed to confusion, we are also adapting to ever evolving scenarios, so let’s hope this one evolves quickly!

Clients are looking to make travel policy changes

Talking of adaptation, 71 per cent of the partners believe their clients will be making changes to their travel policies – whether that is in terms of duty-of-care, budgets or approval processes.

We all know that the landscape is shifting, and that we will have to be nimble to be resilient – but we are well-experienced in this – and the knowledge, insight and service our consultants provide to their corporate clients will also be essential to their recoveries too.  

Our surveys also show that there are short booking windows, with the majority of travel being booked for travel within a few weeks and just a tiny minority being booked for 2021.

The class split is mainly Economy (91%) which fits the traditional marine business with the remaining 9% split over Premium Economy, Business and even some First Class bookings.

I feel that a responsible TMC can perfectly blend sophisticated technology with an in-depth personal service that ensure corporate teams can travel safely and efficiently. This is probably why we are seeing a number of clients using their TMCs for personal trips too, and while it is still only a small number, we have also seen a small increase in number using private charters for both personal and corporate trips.

A separate Focus Travel Partnership survey found that TMC partners anticipate they will be offering a more consultative service to customers post-pandemic.

During lockdown we stepped up the production of online training courses, and tailored many of them for teams on furlough, so that they could hit the ground running when they were brought back. I’m pleased to say that many of the partners made use of them and staff have benefited from that knowledge to pivot and provide enhanced levels of customer service around duty of care."