5Q With Travelport's Jeff Clarke

Travelport president and CEO Jeff Clarke this month discussed with Management.traveltravel industry priorities, advocacy and sustainability. An excerpt follows.

We heard that you recently visited Washington, D.C. What was the context of that visit?

The Wall Street Journalhas created an event and a group called the CEO Council. It is a platform that [News Corp. chairman Rupert] Murdoch and Alan Murray, who is the editor [on the project], are putting in place so that the Journalcan get a group of CEOs together who can establish policy recommendations. The first one was really set up for a group of CEOs to set policy recommendations for the new administration, and we were fortunate that we had the three treasury secretaries there: [current secretary Henry] Paulson and [previous secretaries] Larry Summers and Robert Rubin. Given the economic crisis, it was obviously quite relevant. Then we broke into groups and established a set of priorities. Then we had the pleasure of several congressmen and senators joining us to review those recommendations and then finally Rahm Emanuel, the recently announced chief of staff for Barack Obama's administration, came and gave us his views. For the CEOs, clearly the top priority was that a stimulus was needed. But I think the most interesting part, particularly relevant to the travel industry, was the recommendation that the stimulus be in the form of infrastructure. In other words, there was a recognition that infrastructure--airports, the electricity grid, bridges and roads, core sustainable infrastructure projects with particular emphasis on green infrastructure--where possible be put in place to solve some longer-term problems. The CEOs specifically stated that a stimulus--a tax rebate or a tax credit rebate--would be too transitory as opposed to using this crisis as an opportunity to do some Keynesian, long-term stimulus that improved the overall competitiveness of the economy. In general, the feeling from the new leadership of the Senate, which was represented there, and of the House, and specifically Emanuel's comments, signaled pro-business pragmatism that has been shown in many comments that have come out since the election. The issue that came up as a particular sticky one for the business community relative to the administration is the card check [which would allow labor unionization when a majority of employees sign authorization cards, rather than requiring a secret ballot vote]. This is one where we really feel it was fairly across the board--certainly with a consensus of the CEOs--that the card check would be a significant step backwards in U.S. competitiveness and would also cause a series of unfortunate side effects, such as employees being pressured into voting for a union rather than having the ability to do it in a secret ballot, which would allow them to vote with their conscience and without pressure. [Editor's note: The "card check" is one component of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which Obama supports. It passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007 but stalled in the U.S. Senate.]

As far as the priorities for the travel industry, do you feel that infrastructure is at the top of the list?

Infrastructure is a huge part. Certain things come to mind: to move to a global positioning system for the air traffic control system as opposed to the lanes and channels used today would be a huge improvement for the Federal Aviation Administration. That is a very significant, tangible technology infrastructure investment that could save fuel, improve on-time performance, improve capacity and even allow you to utilize existing airports at higher utilization rates as opposed to having to put down more on runways. That said, I still believe we do not have the infrastructure around the globe of an adequate nature, and we still do need more airports and that will be another important element.

One of things that we have been hearing in relation to the election from some of our readers and sources is that they feel that the travel industry, and perhaps they mean more of the business managed travel community, doesn't have a strong, single voice in Washington. Does that ring true for you, and if so, what do you think could be done to bring some of these messages together and be more effective in lobbying?

There are a series of organizations that exist in the travel industry to influence government, and some of it is lobbying and some of it is less than lobbying--it is advocacy of issues and so forth. For example, one of the strongest organizations that we have in the travel industry is the World Travel and Tourism Council; WTTC is truly a global organization. I'm on the board, and it is very well represented throughout the industry. It is integrated into many other forums. Jean-Claude Baumgarten runs it in a very effective way, yet it has historically been an advocacy arm and a promotion arm for the industry rather than a lobbying arm. As such, there is a vacuum around global tourism, around government. Governments that don't openly support tourism through all of their actions will find that there is enormous competition for that tourist dollar, and other destinations will win. That recognition by governments around tourism is critically important. In terms of your core question: is there an opportunity to be more effective? One of the more significant investments, on the administrative side that Travelport has made, is that we established a Washington office led by an executive named Dirk Van de Beek. We coordinate with Orbitz, who also has an executive based in Washington and is aligned with the online travel agencies' lobbying efforts. We continue to have a political action committee and support those political groups that are particularly favorable to travel, so we are active in our lobbying and we are active in our advocacy. The largest U.S. issue that we have been pressing on is open movement of people. We believe strongly that we need reform on tourist visas. We need significant increases on the ability for secured travel. We need much broader access to visas, more open lanes and reducing visas in some reciprocal fashions to certain countries. We also need to streamline the whole immigration process. While clearly everyone is aware of the importance of border security, the fact is that tourism is a critically important industry for this country and we need to embrace our visitors to the country.

One of your passions that we learned about when you spoke at an American Society of Travel Agents event is the environment and sustainability. What is your assessment on how things have progressed? There is some sentiment that these concerns have taken a back seat with what is going on with the economy.

I disagree. I live in California and was pleased to see a $10 billion voter-based proposition for high-speed rail between Northern California and Southern California. That is an example that the populous and the industries are willing to take on more green initiatives. At The Wall Street JournalCEO conference, there was clearly a feeling that now was a better time than any time to break the addiction to oil and carbon fuels. I was enthused to see the other CEOs embrace that as strongly as many people in our industry have. The Darwinian nature of this downturn and the high oil prices have caused airlines--and other suppliers, hotels as well, and the whole industry--to re-look at energy efficiency and you see that by the grounding of highly inefficient airplanes and more optimization on routes. Those are all important steps. And our contribution obviously is our Carbon Tracker, where we continue to make investments in providing better information to our subscribers around the carbon they use because, the consumer will ultimately make a choice that they are willing to pay a bit more to use a supplier or a route or a mode that gives them a lower carbon footprint.

Are you happy to see how much people are using the Carbon Tracker?

It's too early to tell; the product is still in development. We have lots of interest. Some of the most interesting preliminary customers are the U.S. government and some of the agencies in U.S. government. Clearly, some of the large travel agents view this as a another important piece of value add that they can provide to the corporate customer, but it is too early. We are still refining the product and still getting it integrated, but I am very pleased that people are interested in talking and asking about the product.