Anne Godfrey of GTMC (5Q Interview)

Veteran association director Anne Godfrey at the end of December replaced retiree Philip Carlisleas chief executive of the Guild of Travel Management Companies, the British group that represents 30 travel management companies. Among other duties, the group tasked Godfrey with implementing changes designed to make the organization a more effective lobbying group. To fuel that effort, GTMC last month issued a Business Travel Manifestolargely advocating for better air, road and rail infrastructure. To bolster the manifesto, the group surveyed 1,200 UK business travelers on a variety of their wants and needs, from the simple to the sweeping. Among the results, 70 percent of respondents said reducing the environmental impact of business travel is "quite" or "very" important. Nearly 70 percent said a high-speed rail network should be given the greatest priority, versus 6 percent choosing expanded airport capacity. "The manifesto is the first time we have ever published on behalf of business travelers what makes a difference in their experience," said Godfrey in an interview last month with The Transnational. In the passages that follow, Godfrey addressed GTMC's new direction, changes in its political positions and her views on TMC remuneration.

In terms of the goals and issues outlined in the manifesto, they do seem to represent the traveler most as opposed to perhaps the TMC, although there is obviously overlap. Do you expect an outline of specific issues that are important to TMCs as entities?

Our mission statement as an association says we are there to represent the interests of the business traveler and, actually, representing those interests will help the TMCs because they are the clients. So, yes, you could say the survey informed the manifesto. We listened to the business traveler, we knew already what our members wanted and we changed a couple policy positions because of what came out. But there is nothing in that manifesto that is not what my TMC membership would think is a priority.

Which positions were changed?

We changed two, or amended them slightly. One is Heathrow. Our previous position on Heathrow's third runway was that it must be the single biggest priority for any government. Realistically and pragmatically, we are no longer saying that. We do need increased capacity at UK airports--Heathrow, Luton, Gatwick, Stansted, whatever it happens to be. We do not have enough capacity, period. And the way that is achieved might be the third runway at Heathrow, it might be more international flights through other regional outlets, it might be mixed mode at Heathrow, it might be more disruption capacity, it might be getting UK travelers off planes and into trains and using that freed capacity for international. So it's a shift away. It's not that we don't want a third runway; it's that we're saying it may be one of a range of solutions. The next [position change] was difficult for my members. We have always said, like most people, that we don't like air passenger duty. We don't like taxes. We wish for APD to go away. We're now saying, "Right, it's there. We don't like it. We would rather it was not increased, but you the government have told us it's a green tax. Well, we're not fools. Business travelers are not fools. This is not a green tax. So for as long as it exists, we would like to see it used to be green." And that could be in two ways--investment in green technology for planes and trains, or it could be hypothecated to transport infrastructure. So you could take the APD and spend it on high-speed rail. That word hypothecation is not something that any government likes.

Will the manifesto be refreshed every year?

No, because a manifesto is most useful before an election. But would we do an annual survey of business travelers? Absolutely. I'd expect that every year, so you can get trends and be measured on it. I'd expect our members to challenge GTMC on where we did get successes.

Did the group need to gain any kind of special status to be a lobbying organization?

No. Anyone can lobby, both commercial or not for profit. Some do it themselves, and some have external firms do it for them. Some, that's all they do. For us, some of what we do is lobbying, some membership services, some information and advice, some is getting the guys together and having a nice time. We started about 18 months ago recognizing we have a group of like-minded souls who need government to listen. We hired a third party to help with that. They took Philip around and did the usual knocking on doors for members of Parliament (MPs) and special advisors. At that stage, it was to tell them who we were because there was very little recognition of business travel as a separate sector. They knew the Association of British Travel Agencies, and they got what [leisure travel companies] Thomson and TUI did, and we had to say, "No, when you go on holiday that's Thomson and TUI, but when you travel as a civil servant, it's one of my members who makes sure you do that well and cheaply and quickly." So we did that piece, and they said, "You're telling us what business travelers want; you need a bit more substance. We need evidence that this is actually what people want." And that's what the manifesto was, and now we can go back to those civil servants, MPs and special advisors and tell them what business travelers want and what we'd like government to think about. I probably have two months before they shut up shop for the [next UK general] election because the doors start to slam probably by the end of March. And then after that we have to wait and see who gets in and we start again.

One of the more interesting things we have covered is GTMC's initiative in conjunction with the Institute of Travel and Meetings to explore pricing modelsin terms of how corporations pay TMCs. There is a second part of that on the agenda. Maybe it's become an ITM-only initiative. [ITM confirmed after this interview that part two was always meant to be an ITM-only publication.] So is there any change in GTMC's commitment to that kind of industry research?

I wasn't around for that, but here's what I think: I'm not aware we're doing any work with ITM at the moment on pricing models. I'm not sure actually that I'd see that as a natural fit because my TMCs would have their own views, some of which might be very different from ITM's. As an organization, we should be able to have best practice models that we offer TMCs, such as these are the three ways you can price with a corporate--transaction, service, upfront fees, whatever. Having sat through working parties where we've been talking about that, we have honest and open conversations about that where we try to stay away from commercial arrangements, but say that moving forward it has to be about honesty and trust. The corporate that is paying needs to know what they're paying for, and we're looking at having--and I don't know when--some best practice models around the three main ways we would transact with a corporate client. That would be a GTMC guidance note. Some members will do one version, some two, some three and some won't ever want to talk about it. But that's for GTMC to do with its members, rather than in partnership with ITM.