When there's a will, there's a way to travel for business

Members of the global business travel community got together for the first-ever PATA & GBTA APAC Travel Summit, which took place in the newly reopened Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok last week.

Sustainability, blended travel and travel risk management were hot topics of discussion at event. Here's what industry executives in the corporate travel space have to say:

No silver-bullet solutions on the sustainability journey
Sustainability was among the key topics discussed, with TMCs and suppliers sharing that this has emerged as a key concern for many corporate travellers in the post-pandemic environment.

"Sustainability is a journey, not a flick of a switch. We need a framework in place," said Ben Wedlock, senior vice president, global sales, Asia Pacific at BCD Travel, who also examined the many myths surrounding sustainability during a discussion. "Offsetting should have a place in sustainable travel programme, but it is not a silver bullet," he added.

Get travel policies up to date and up to standards
With more corporate travellers and events back on the road again, Lee Whiteing, commercial director at Global Security Accreditation, reminded the audience of crisis response and customer care. "Don't overlook safety, which is often getting less attention than sustainability at conferences," he stated.

The international standards expert also urged players to adopt a structured approach to their travel policies with ISO 31030 – the international standard for travel risk management launched in September 2021 – on how to deliver duty-of-care requirements to their business-travelling employees.

Mind the duty of care gap with rise of blended travel
The post-pandemic working environment has made blended travel and digital nomadism opportunities much more prevalent, but these new trends also opened up more possibilities of duty of care gaps. Not getting the correct visas and documentation could spell potential trouble for travellers on blended trips, reminded Crisis24's APAC director Richard Hancock, who shared real-life examples of how such issues had turn into nightmares.

Seamless trip experience matters more than you think
For Paul Tilstone, managing partner of Festive Road, who asked the audience to test out the company's '8 Macrotrends' report on the trend most likely to impact travel management in the next decade during his presentation, observed that the whole trip experience stood out as a key macro-trend for APAC.

"The audience narrative suggested that this was partly due to the region being the innovators behind and huge users of the super-app experience, such as WeChat," he noted.

Don't ignore the Chinese tsunami that is building up
Suzanne Nuefang, CEO of GBTA said, "There was also recurring discussion onsite as to whether and how travel ecosystems would respond when China business travel continues to scale up, including pent-up demand and revenge travel.”

Following the conclusion of the first event, both organisers have announced that the second PATA-GBTA APAC Travel Summit will take place in Singapore in September 2023.