The corporate travel industry is facing a “defining moment” as travel restarts around the world, says Paul Abbott, CEO of American Express Global Business Travel.
During an interview for the BTN Group’s Business Travel Show Europe Kick Off virtual event on Thursday (24 February), Abbott said that business travel was “coming back differently” from the disruption caused by the Covid-19 crisis.
“The recovery, the restart of travel is a defining moment for the industry as travellers and companies come back,” he said. “They are coming back into an environment that’s a little more complex and uncertain.
“We really have to rise to that challenge. It’s no good just claiming that travel is safe or enjoyable. We need to make sure we treat every trip as an event and we are those trusted travel advisors, so that we can give travellers a fantastic end-to-end experience as they come back to travel.”
In a wide-ranging interview with BTN Group’s editorial director Elizabeth West, Abbott said travel would be “more important to companies than ever before”, due to the increase in more flexible working and the need to use travel to bring teams together.
“In an era of more flexible working, travel is going to play a more important role in the way companies collaborate, engage and motivate their people,” he explained. “Ultimately travel is going to become a real catalyst for building culture within an organisation.
“The office has been very much the beating heart of collaboration, innovation and culture, but that’s fundamentally changed for many companies.
“Travel is coming back as the way for people to connect in person – I’m really thinking about business travel as a strategic investment in people, not a line item that the CFO is looking to scrutinise every week.”
Abbott said that this fundamental shift gave travel managers and their departments a “wonderful opportunity to expand and elevate their role in their company”.
“Business travel is coming back as a series of smaller meetings and events – the line between business travel and events is disappearing and I see that accelerating,” he added.
Abbott said the TMC has seen demand “coming back really strongly” in recent weeks, as Covid-related travel restrictions have been lifted in many countries but he added that some governments were still removing barriers “too slowly”.
“I fully expect that momentum to continue in the weeks and months ahead,” he predicted. “We’re seeing a slightly stronger recovery in Europe. The US would be slightly behind Europe and Asia is the area that’s seeing the slowest recovery this year.”
Abbott said the recovery had been stronger for smaller and medium-sized organisations, although there were signs that this gap was starting to narrow as larger firms “pick up the pace”.
American Express GBT hit the headlines last year with its purchase of fellow TMC Egencia and the decision to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
“Going public is the next logical step in the evolution of the company and it gives us flexibility and investment capacity,” said Abbott.
“It will allow us to accelerate the strategy we already had in place, which is all about creating more choice, more value and better experiences for customers.
“We want to offer the broadest and deepest choice in the market so that customers don’t have to go anywhere else.”
When asked about further mergers or acquisitions, Abbott responded: “If we see opportunities to add technology and capabilities that can help us to differentiate American Express Global Business Travel, we will continue to do that.”