Caroline Strachan
Caroline Strachan, international travel manager for Yahoo, became vice chair of the U.K.'s Institute of Travel Management during the organization's March conference in Edinburgh. She will replace Mark Avery as ITM chair in 2008. An industry veteran with experience on the supply side at American Express and BTI, among others, Strachan also previously worked for Cisco Systems in event management and EMEA travel management. She spoke recently with Management.travelabout the roles of travel managers, recent news and ITM's plans. An excerpt follows.
What is your focus as you prepare to help lead ITM?
We constantly talk about traveler behavior, in any environment or any forum I attend. Travel management is not just about getting airline deals in place and hotel deals in place--and just thinking of those core things. Actually, it is the wider impact of what travel does to support the business. Yes, there are costs that have to be controlled and yes, you have to make sure people are traveling for the right reasons, that it is a good return on investment, etc. But also, travel can be such a valuable asset or tool for the business, so how do we look at that as an industry? That is something that ITM is particularly interested in. So, things like web conferencing and whether that should sit within a travel management environment ... so there is a thought process, or a justification process, as to why you actually have to leave the office. There are many things that are linked to travel rather than it just being about the travel suppliers.
One of your former employers, Cisco, has stressed the importance of remote conferencingas part of a wider focus on the environmental impact of travel. Certainly, ITM also has focused on climate change and travel management. What are the next steps?
The number one priority is following through with Project Icarus [a program designed to help companies reduce carbon dioxide emissions from business travel]. Honestly, ITM does not do a good enough job shouting out about these things. The [Icarus] toolkit on the ITM Web site is fantastic. We really have not sold it enough to members, telling them that this information is there. I really hope there was enough topical debate at the [Edinburgh] conference so attendees would say, "I need to do something about this," and actually look to that toolkit. The main step people have to take after the conference is going through that toolkit and seeing how it can be applied to their organizations. Every organization is going to have a very unique and specific need in the corporate social responsibility area. Hopefully, people are getting the message that everyone can do their big piece, or their small piece--whatever they are ready for.
Speaking of the Edinburgh conference, European Union transport ministers voted to approve the Open Skies agreement with the United Stateswhile that event was taking place, and delegates began speculating on the impact. A few weeks later, do you have any sense as to how the deal will affect managed travel programs?
We are not going to see any black and white change until next year. The cost of my contract or the cost of my tickets are not going to change by 10 percent in the next week, and I should not be concerned about the contract I have today. If ITM were to have a forum on the subject, we would be saying, "Now is not the right time to be signing into a two-year deal because potentially costs are going to go down ex-U.K." But who knows? It is a bit like buying a house with a 6-year mortgage rate, or not. It is that type of strategic gamble that people are going through right now. Do they feel like they should lock in their prices or wait to see what really happens next year? I was interested to see that Delta [reportedly] got some London Heathrow slots, so we will see if additional announcements come out in the next few weeks.
Generally, how will ITM continue to balance the needs of its buyer and supplier constituencies, and provide value to both sides?
That is a really important subject and it should always be asked. It is not just whether this is an issue for us in the second quarter of this year, or was it an issue for us last year and will it be an issue for us next year? It is an ongoing issue, and not just supplier/buyer. It is members in general. Are you always meeting what they need, and as an association, are you delivering what is required? Having been a supplier, I think I come at this with a different opinion than maybe some buyers without that background. As a supplier, I really wanted to understand the priorities of that buyer. I wanted to be inside the mind of that buyer, to see what is important to them. A number of suppliers would say they never get that feedback from buyers and they never get the opportunity to have quality time with the buyers. So if ITM can bridge that gap a bit, we are doing a great service to our supplier members. Some of the ideas around that are a half-day forum that is suppliers only, where buyers come to present and say, "This is my methodology and psychology when I go into a request for proposal." And they can show how, in a corporate environment, travel management fits in. For instance, an airline sales manager may have no idea what a CFO thinks of a travel management program within a corporate. And someone from a hotel has no idea what the human resources impact would be if there are mice running around the hotel. The corporates can really help educate suppliers on what is really important and what will become more important. Those suppliers that are proactive, and talk to us not just about prices and the travel management supply piece, are going to be the successful ones.
What other topics would you like to see ITM address?
Another area that I feel passionate about is the route into corporate travel. At the moment, corporate travel is difficult to get into and yet we struggle, as an industry, to get great resources. If you think of how I got into my job at Yahoo today, it was a long way. It took me 17 years to get here. When I then have to find a replacement in years to come, I don't want to be going out and struggling in the marketplace. If there is something ITM can do which creates a professional, instructed and really valuable path into the corporate travel management role, then we have done the industry a great service. Related resource: Institute of Travel Management Project Icarus Environmental Impact Reduction Toolkit