Health passports, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion emerged as the three key themes of the opening session at the Business Travel Show Europe Kick Off this week.
The Corporate Travel Megatrends session saw a diverse panel of speakers come together on the virtual stage to debate current focus points, with the concept of health passes, or ‘vaccine passports’, first on the agenda.
“There are some 18 organisations working on digital health certificates so it’s going to be a chaotic way forward,” said Bruce McIndoe, president of McIndoe Risk Advisory. “Vaccines and testing will be our path out of this [the pandemic], but vaccine passports will expedite it.
“But we have to have a dual system. Not everyone has a digital device so there will be a requirement for a paper-based system.”
While concerns around the complexity of establishing an industry standard were shared – as well as the potential inequalities vaccine passports might bring – Dr Adrian Hyzler, medical officer at Healix, was keen to stress how quickly health organisation have been able to provide an escape route.
“It’s amazing we’re at this stage already with incredibly effective vaccines. At the moment we can be very positive and optimistic,” he stated.
On the subject of sustainability, Gehan Colliander, global travel director at Boston Consulting Group, said that Covid has “allowed us to turn crisis into opportunity, and to build confidence in meaningful change”.
BCG’s sustainability plans were already well-established, she explained, but Covid has “accelerated our journey”.
In September last year it pledged to cut business travel-related carbon emissions at least 30 per cent per full-time employee by the year 2025 from 2018 levels. It is part of a wider goal to reach net-zero climate impact for the business by 2030.
Colliander said that although the travel function is not necessarily the sustainability expert within an organisation, it is “a single source of truth for all data relating to emissions from business travel, and you must be able to provide meaningful input and scenario analysis for your business leaders”.
She said the importance of buy-in and communication from senior leaders should not be underestimated, and that “individuals must have the right information in their hands when they make their travel decisions”.
She also suggested introducing an element of competition between departments or regions as they work towards carbon reduction targets.
Asked if suppliers are doing enough in this area, Colliander said: “Some say they are already carbon neutral but you should audit this. On the hotel side, many have new initiatives and it’s good to see airline looking at sustainable aviation fuels. There’s a long way to go but there is at least good dialogue around this right now.”
Panellist Linda Bekoe, chief executive of APLBC, took up the reins on the subject of diversity and inclusion.
“People have started asking a lot more questions around diversity and inclusion – about race, gender, sexuality,” she said. “I think the travel industry has always thought it was diverse, but if you look at the top leaders and really break it down, it’s actually not that diverse. We’re doing ok on gender balance but we can do a lot more to embrace diversity.”
She added: “D&I used to be a box-ticking exercise but now it’s more about seeing the percentages across an organisation and in middle and senior management.”
Bekoe advised attendees to try and “meet more people who are different from you” and to seek out more diverse suppliers. “If you look at diverse organisations, you often get more creativity and innovation.”
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