The Old Dog Saw a Cool New Trick
by Tony
I think most of our followers know I’ve been around for a while, but what you might not know is that I started my career in Travel over 32 years ago as a Reservation Sales Representative with United Airlines at a center they had in Rockleigh, NJ (at the whopping starting salary of $6.02 per hour 
). I made it through a grueling six week training class and graduated after demonstrating my competency in quickly recalling and using the hundreds of rudimentary Apollo CRS formats I learned that allowed me to find United’s flights, sell hotels and rental cars, and generally service UA’s customers.
I recall many things from that time, such as Marketing messages like, “fly to ‘our little corner of the world’, aka Hawaii”, or “First to 50” (UA was the first and only airline to fly to all 50 states at the time). I also learned my city codes, codes I have never forgotten 32 years later. Some of those codes made perfect sense and were easy like JFK (John F Kennedy Airport in NY), but others made no sense at all and required some little tricks to help recall them, such as New Orleans, where MSY makes perfect sense only when you consider how “messy” it gets after Mardi Gras .
So why am I taking this walk down memory lane you ask? Well, curious guy that I am, I joined a webcast recently held by Travelport where they showed their new Smart Point technology. Promoted as being able, among other things, to have the ability to translate cryptic GDS commands across systems, it dawned on me that all the time I spent painstakingly learning all those format years ago is no longer necessary. As usual it got me thinking, in this case about how much easier the world is these days based on technology innovation, because it’s pretty easy to see how a TMC will benefit from this particularly when it comes to training their staff.
So kudos to Travelport because what I saw was pretty slick (and to be fair to my other GDS friends, I’m told they have developed similar stuff). Another example of technology innovation that makes life easier for someone, even for an old dog like me, just in case I want to put my headset back on and take a few res calls for old times’ sake.
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Gartner Predicts Continued Consumerization of IT … CarryingOn Asks “What took them so long?”
by Tony
Research organization Gartner, Inc. made some very interesting predictions relative to IT for 2012 and beyond. Check out the complete list of prophecies here. But what struck a chord with me was the overall tone of the report — which suggested the continuing influence of the consumer/end user, and the power that impact will have on influencing IT Managers. This pull-out gives you the gist:
“The continued trends toward consumerization and cloud computing highlight the movement of certain former IT responsibilities into the hands of others … As users take more control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking more control of the budgets IT organizations have watched shift over the last few years. As the world of IT moves forward, CIOs are finding that they must coordinate their activities in a much wider scope than they once controlled. While this might be a difficult prospect for IT departments, they must now adapt or be swept aside.”
CarryingOn has talked about this trend towards consumerization in business travel in the past, and if we extrapolate some of the predictions Gartner is making, it sounds like the days of corporate mandates could be ending. Ponder for a minute: just a couple years ago, would you have envisioned your company not only supporting multiple operating systems, but allowing employees to select which devices and applications they use at work, or to store their data in “the cloud”? (Your 2009 self would likely be confused by the “cloud” and you would also have no idea the impact that Apple would soon have on your life.) It used to be: you started at a company and they provisioned you a desktop or PC, in some cases a smart phone, and in just about 100% of the cases, provided you access to the company’s “network,” a highly guarded environment that was vetted by security, sourced by procurement, maintained by operations, and used by 100% of the employees. Today, it’s becoming an entirely different ballgame.
The New York Times recently reported on the consumerization of IT: “[Corporate IT departments] are now in retreat. Employees are bringing in the technology they use at home and demanding the IT department accommodate them. The IT department often complies.” The Times reports that Forrester Research found that 48 percent of information workers buy smartphones for work “without considering what their IT department supports.” Apparently, flexibility = productivity. So, let’s extrapolate these trends to travel.
The fact is, the Managed Travel program has always been “challenged” by the end user. In the good old days before the web, it was fairly common to hear an employee say (and many times that employee was a “C”-Level type), that they had a friend “in the business”, aka, a local Travel Agent that they had dealt with for years, and they often avoided the company mandated TMC. Today, it’s “I found a better deal on the web,” but the point is that when it came to Travel, there has always seemed to be more of a willingness to challenge the company program in some way.
Today, technology innovation has created a more informed and demanding end user whose experience in their personal life shapes their expectations at work. They proudly suggest they can find something better, because they feel only they know what they want, need, like, or all of the above. And, on some levels, they are probably right. We’ve heard of entire Travel programs where the end user is given great latitude in making decisions, and in general there seems to be a trend towards accommodation that cannot be ignored.
The trends all point to a need to re-think some of the basics of your program to ensure the decisions you are making, especially those related to the technology you put in a users hands (think online tool and mobile travel application), need to be informed by what the end user thinks is best for them. Ignore the trend and face the potential wrath of a more informed and empowered employee. Remember, Business Travel is not their end game; it’s a means to a greater end. How they do it matters. How you build your program to accommodate for that matters as well.
Becky’s December Challenge: 31 Ways to Pair Travel with Giving
by Becky
I love chocolate, and I love salted caramel. But the two together are something FAR better than the sum of the parts. Bliss, even.
It’s the same way with two other things I love: travel and giving. Every time I board a plane I’m struck by how fortunate we are, we weary travellers, that we have the privilege to jet around the world and see new landscapes, meet different people, and peek (in some cases, leap) beyond our cultural comfort zones. Even just seeing the planet from 35,000 feet is a joy sometimes, a chance to get some perspective on the chaos below, or at the very least, an opportunity to see the sun shining above the rain clouds.
It doesn’t always feel like it, as we schlep through crowded security lines and wedge ourselves into middle seats, but we are lucky, lucky people.
Travel also gives us a unique opportunity to impact the places we are visiting for the better. This month I am running a Twitter campaign to highlight organizations that pair travel with charitable giving and volunteerism. Some will be easy and are relevant no matter where you’re travelling, or how. Some apply only to those of you who are trekking to more adventurous destinations, or specific spots. Some don’t even require you to actually travel. But all of them, I hope, will inspire you. Follow me at @BeckyontheRoad and #31TravelGiving.
Do you think I can find 31 of these opportunities? I’m sure I can – and if you know of one, send it my way to make it even easier. I’ll highlight in my Twitter campaign and in a couple of roundups posts I will offer here on Carrying On this month. Post comments here if you have ideas!
Happy travelling, you lucky wanderers! How sweet it is, indeed.
Want a Great Social Profile? Try a Great Customer Experience.
by Becky
One of the more valuable (and oft-re-Tweeted) pearls of wisdom that came out of the energetic PhoCusWright Conference a couple of weeks ago was from Hilton’s president of global brands and commercial services, Paul Brown. Social media may not be the death of brands, he said during his keynote speech, “but social media may be the death of bad brands.”
Ah, yes! The influence of social media is strong, no doubt. But the influence of an outstanding customer experience is far stronger. (Not the least of which is because it begets a more positive social media sentiment.) It was fun to see that simple idea so boldly and overtly stated on stage.
Brown said Hilton will aim to avoid rewarding customers who choose passive-aggressive methods of airing grievances, in favor of those who choose private and direct channels, like writing to the hotel. So, if you have an issue, you know what to do, weary traveler!
Tony D. is The King of Logic
by Mike
Tony D. first redefined “logical” when he recycled old newspapers by reselling them at the local junkyard. Today, TheBeat.Travel features TD’s latest challenge of all things logical. “Travel managers are missing the mark!,” he shouts, insisting that the definition of “Lowest Logical Airfare” must change forever. Today’s travel managers must expand their definition of “logical” beyond price, scheduling and corporate discounts — to benefit both business travelers and their organizations. Let’s be real: companies that keep their road warriors happy with in-flight wi-fi and priority boarding have more productive business travelers, at minimal incremental cost. Read more here, then please answer for us: what is the most logical way to help your business travelers succeed? And if I may quote Tony: “Soldier On, Travelers.”
Is it me or does this plane smell like french fries?
by Tony
I’m not sure if you caught the CNN article, but a number of airlines are checking out alternative fuel sources such as algae and cooking oil — and it struck me as intriguing. I’m all for anything that can reduce the general dependency on oil, given the dramatic impact it has on the Travel industry, but it sounds like we have a ways to go here before we should start getting too excited. The cost for alternative fuel sources is still somewhat prohibitive, but what CNN identifies as just as challenging is that there is no “supply chain” for these alternative fuel sources. So even if the industry can figure out how to get all the kinks out, they’ll still have a pretty big hurdle: there is no efficient way to get the product from producer to consumer.
That got me to thinking about a topic I’ve blogged about in the past, namely the concept of a T&E Supply Chain. In case you don’t want to hit the link and read the post, according to Wikipedia a supply chain is “a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer.” Think about yours, and when you consider game-changers like fragmenting content, new sources of distribution and payment (think Mobile), and new players and processes (think Daily Offers, Gamification, and Social Networking), ask the question “What will our new T&E Supply Chain look like in a year or two?” Which of these new processes or platforms are most likely to stick and become part of the new Travel Program? Which will attract users, and which will become distractions that fall by the wayside? Attraction or Distraction? That is the question, when thinking about your new T&E Supply Chain.
Alaska Air is now testing alternative fuels, running test flights powered by cooking oil, which the airline claims is reducing CO2 emissions by 10 percent. Meanwhile, that fuel costs six times as much as conventional jet fuel. (It simply is not cheap to filter the fried bits out of cooking oil before reclaiming it to power a jet.) I see the attraction of trying to reduce carbon emissions from a corporate social responsibility perspective, but I fall down on the side of distraction on this one due to supply chain issues … because the idea of running a plane on fryolator grease is worthless until McDonald’s makes their drive thrus big enough to accommodate a 757. So the next time you are considering the latest and greatest idea, ask yourself – attraction or distraction?
Rest in Peace, Champ
by Tony
I was saddened to hear of the passing this week of one my all time favorite athletes, Joe Frazier. “Smokin” Joe was a man’s man who never backed down or stopped moving forward, and that despite getting knocked down more than once, always managed to get up and fight on. His work ethic was legendary and he told it like it was, and while I never had the pleasure of meeting him, he definitely left a lasting impression on me. Prepare yourself as best you can, always give your best effort, never quit, and always conduct yourself like a professional. Rest In Peace, Champ.
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The CTD Conference: On the Road Again…..
I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the CTD Conference last week in San Antonio. The Conference had a number of interesting sessions covering everything from Distribution to Sustainability, and was highlighted by keynote speaker US Airways Flight Attendant Sheila Dail, who provided her firsthand account of the traumatic and heroic story of the Miracle on the Hudson. Her talk was riveting.
Fun fact: For those of you who might not know, ARC (Airline Reporting Corporation), has a special designation for companies who seek their own accreditation. This status (Corporate Travel Department) was created about 10 years ago and has now been granted to over 100 companies, many of whom gather each year at the CTD event. It’s a lively crowd.
The group had me back this year to do my annual “Technology Report.” This year, I focused my presentation on three main topics:
- The continuing growth of Mobile in Travel and the emergence of the Mobile “Operating System” as a future foundation for ecommerce,
- A review of four concepts: Loyalty, Gamification, Social Networking, and Daily Offers, and how they will make the life of a Travel Manager a whole lot more interesting, and
- A review of how technology innovation and new business models are having a dramatic effect on a changing T&E Supply Chain.
Based on the group’s reaction, either these concepts had them buzzing, or their phones were all on vibrate. But beyond that, I know it got them thinking — which is always my goal at these events. I heard some great post conference feedback, which got me thinking. I might run a webcast to review these concepts with our loyal followers at Carrying On, so use the comments section here to let us know if you think that would be a good idea or DM us at @Carrying_On. If not, don’t say I didn’t warn you the next time one of your travelers asks why your Travel Program doesn’t try to engage them with a Loyalty Scheme, an Offer, or an Award like they can get for killing Angry Birds. Or by leveraging the opinions of their peers, all delivered via their smart phones.
Keep It In Check, Travelers
by Becky
I’ve been following Joe Brancatelli for some time now. Though he sits in business class (seat 2B) while I am back in coach (almost always in 6B) — we agree on many things. His post this week for Portfolio.com gives attitude adjustment advice for business travelers, to ensure a smooth road warrior experience. Like I always say, “Go Zen, be prepared and save the arguments for later.” Safe travels!
Tony D. Knows Everything
by Mike
Tony D. is an expert on many things. Leveraging mobile to manage travel and track celebrity goings on. Intuitively understanding proper etiquette on airlines. Poetry. Today, The Huffington Post added Tony to its roster of experts, spreading his advice on managing ancillary fees during holiday travel. Read it, and you’ll walk away a smarter traveler. Then come back and share your holiday travel story – how are you planning to save on your voyage?
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