Traveller wellness and sustainability pivoting corporate travel industry
CAPA’s Australia Pacific 2021 Aviation Summit in Sydney 7-8 December, was most likely one of the first opportunities in almost two years that attendees have been able to freely network with peers face-to-face.
The event reminded everyone who attended the two-day hybrid event, just how powerfully engaging it is to watch, listen and talk with industry friends - in the flesh.
Drawing some of the industry’s most prominent leaders from across the corporate travel sector, the event highlighted all the pressing issues facing travel buyers and suppliers.
From aviation, tourism and government updates to post-pandemic travel, program sustainability, travel technology, freight and FIFO travel, the think tank covered all the hot topics and trends.
Representing FCM was National Head of Account Management Renos Rologas, who spoke about instilling confidence in the travel community and what organisations should be considering as part of their return to travel.
“Our people are going to be anxious to travel, so we need to help them be less anxious - to be at their best to do whatever your organisation does,” Renos told the audience. “Do your travellers know what to do, who to call and where to go if something happens? The reality of this new normal is that something is going to happen.
“Our end goal should be to ensure our travel community has the confidence to travel, that they know where to go to get the information they need to be at their best when travelling for business. Whether you’re a buyer, whether you’re a supplier, it doesn’t matter – we all travel so that’s what we should be aiming to do.”
Renos’ dive into the key client considerations for travel post-pandemic included:
- Approvals
- Safety and wellbeing
- Communication
- Travel policy
FCM Australia’s National Sales Leader, Sue McEvoy, was one of four speakers on panel at CAPA. Sue joined other industry heavyweights including Serko, Tasman Environmental Markets and CAPA to discuss how clients were pivoting towards carbon neutrality.
“In every RFP, companies are placing a huge weighting on sustainability and ESG, which demonstrates they are taking it very seriously,” Sue told CAPA’s audience. “Just today I spoke to a few clients who said they were prepared to pay more to reduce their Co2 footprint.
“I think it’s a case of people will continue to travel but they are going to travel smarter.”
Sue said online booking tools and advanced travel climate technology was making it easier for companies to monitor and manage their carbon footprint.
“It’s [sustainability] become easier with the likes of the partners on panel here today. The tools we have available now make it a seamless experience for the traveller. I think sustainability will become easier for businesses to manage because we can provide the right tools for companies to gain more visibility of their carbon emissions and report on it.”
FCM has just released a carbon emissions display feature in its online booking tool that helps users to see how much carbon their flights produce. The emissions panel is visible as a pop-up on the recommended itinerary page.
In addition to this, within the FCM App, travellers have access to their ‘travel stats’. Viewable data includes the traveller's kilometres travelled, number of trips completed, hours travelled, cities or countries visited and total Co2 emissions produced from flights.
FCM Platform’s reporting dashboards allow travel managers view the total tons and carbon cost estimate of their company’s travel. Reporting also includes more granular data for regional reporting on transport used, flights flown, year-on-year variances, booking and destination markets as well as length of flights. The rich data enables more thorough analysis of a business’ carbon footprint and empowers clients to make more informed decisions around sustainability.