Cathrine Lundberg
The Transnationalspoke this week with Sweden-based CMM Consulting senior consultant Cathrine Lundberg about corporate social responsibility, terrorism and other issues affecting business travelers and their companies.
What are the most important issues of the day for multinational travel managers?
In light of what is happening in the world, it's the security issues and tracking systems for travelers. Unfortunately, not all senior managers are aware that they need to keep track of their travelers. That is also part of corporate social responsibility. We have been speaking of CSR from the environmental point of view and that is the focus in the United States as well, but security and a number of other issues are also important parts of CSR.
What's your assessment of companies' accomplishments on tracking travelers?
I think they are getting there, and realizing how important it is to have different kinds of advice about what to do and not to do. The issue here is that you might have a very good travel manager and travel management company, but--as you can see in the European market--due to the fact that you have a number of low-cost airlines, people go on the Internet because they think it is so cheap and they book those tickets in violation, many times, of their own travel policies. Then no one knows where they are because they don't get into the systems and you are not able to track them. A number of corporations in Europe have mandated that you may not book your travel via airline Web pages. This is a big issue, especially in the northern part of Europe, where it is not very common to mandate travel policy. That's a cultural thing and some corporations allow [Web bookings] because they think they save money, but at the same time they don't know where their travelers are. In the development of travel management, you started with price hunting, then you looked at the processes, and the meeting strategies, and now you have CSR. But when the low-cost airlines started to show, in the European market especially, people started to book themselves because they just saw the ticket price and thought the total cost must be lower--instead of the fact that they might book their ticket [using] a remote airport, and the lower fare is automatically eaten up by the transportation to the airport.
So they think they are doing the right thing for their company?
Yes. The problem we have here, as well, is that a number of senior management teams do not know the difference between booking on airline Web pages, using an online travel agency or using a self-booking tool tied to their TMC. Everyone just says "We're booking on the Internet," and they cannot clearly see the difference between these three things and where they may have contracted with their TMCs for tracking. We can see now in this part of the world that around 10 to 15 percent of travel is booked outside the TMCs, directly online with LCCs. So this is a big issue and the larger a corporation gets, the harder it is to be aware. As always, it's a communication thing and the hardest thing is to communicate about something within your own organization. If you are born and raised in your company culture, you know how to communicate within your organization, but if a travel manager is hired from outside the corporation, it's very complicated to find the correct ways to communicate internally and determine whether to push or pull information. Some corporations say, "We'll put everything on our internal Web site and we'll wait ... for employees to enter it and get the information." But on the other hand, I think a lot of corporations hide the travel information so deep down in the very rich [intranet] environments with lots of information, so it is hard for a traveler to find the proper information.
There was a lot of discussion at recent conferences about " green travel management." What have you seen so far in terms of progress?
Today, the green issues grow and become a very important part of the issues, but it's still important to realize that CSR is not only the green issues. There are a number of issues, especially looking at travelers and how the corporation takes care of its own employees. For example, a mandated policy that they always fly in economy and things like that. I think there are "soft" issues surrounding the possibilities for employees to do a good job and to survive in a very harsh environment. All the terrorism and everything put a strain on the travelers and their families. I think that before September 11, no one thought of the families. But today, if you ask a lot of wives or husbands or children "Do you like that your spouse or Mom or Dad is flying all the time?" ... these kids look at the television and see everything that happens around the world, and I know there are quite a number of children, wives and husbands who are not comfortable and they are worried.
Are senior managers responsive to these concerns?
Some of them are, but I think these issues should be more discussed than they are today. I fully agree that business must go on; we can't put ourselves in the hands of the terrorists and stop traveling because then we have really shown that the terrorists have reached their goal. But we have to be more conscientious than we have been before, and to listen to our employees much more. I also think there are some measures that can be taken to make the lives of the frequent flyers much better. Travel managers have to look at money, time and the possibilities for the traveler to really fly so he or she is in a good mood when they reach their destination. And then you have the security and environmental issues, as well. This package is so important because you are not just sending goods all over the world; it's human beings you are talking about, and if you do not treat them properly, they won't do a good job for your corporation--and then it's meaningless to send them.