MICE Conversations: a podcast for the Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Events industry
MICE Conversations: a podcast for the Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Events industry
#3: MICE Conversations - Tom Otley, Editor, Business Traveller magazine UK
Episode #3. 'MICE Conversations'. Michael Collins, TravelMedia.ie, in conversation with Tom Otely, Editor of Business Traveller magazine UK.
About Tom Otley, Editor, Business Traveller magazine UK.
https://twitter.com/tomotley
https://www.facebook.com/BusinessTraveller/
https://www.businesstraveller.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/businesstravelleruk
https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-traveller/
Interview recorded Monday 29th March 2021. Disclaimer. Business Traveller magazine is a client of TravelMedia.ie. TravelMedia.ie manage the Business Traveller YouTube channel.
Topics and questions, timeline or video chapters.
00:00 - Intro
00:47 - How has the last 12 months been for you working from home?
01:43 - What has Business Traveller magazine been doing during the lockdown?
05:22 - Will the UK be able to travel from May 17th?
08:44 - Who in travel will lead us out of the lockdown, government or industry, e.g. airlines? The US or UK or the EU?
11:51 - Once everyone is vaccinated, will we still have testing? If there is still a testing requirement travel won't open up fully.
16:30 - Will it be business or leisure travel that opens up first?
19:37 - Are you seeing any new trends emerge?
22:47 - Do people now feel it is safe to travel again?
25:41 - Where to find out more about Business Traveller?
TravelMedia.ie run Ireland's only outbound MICE networking event, the MICE Meetup Dublin.
https://www.travelmedia.ie/mice-meetup-dublin/
Business Traveller magazine, Panacea Media.
41-43 Maddox Street, London, W1S 2PD
Tel: +44 (0)207 821 2700
enquiries@panaceapublishing.com
- So, hello Welcome to another MICE conversation session. My name is Michael Collins. I run TravelMedia.ie I'm based in Dublin normally and we run the Dublin MICE Meetup which is an outbound event for the MICE industry. Today, I'm talking to Tom Otley. Tom, you can see on the screen beside me here. Tom is the editor of Business Traveller magazine and Tom normally should travel more than I do Tom is based in London and therefore offers us a somewhat unique perspective. Obviously, Tom is not pure to the MICE industry but I think Tom will give us a very good perspective on what is happening. Tom is shaking his head. On business travel, let's say which is very much MICE. So Tom, how are you? Thank you for joining us. How has the last 12 months been for you working from home? I assume that is home at the background.- It is, it is home, yeah, well, I mean there've been advantages, I suppose, working from home. I did a fair bit of it before when I wasn't travelling but obviously the big thing for all of us has just been the complete lack of travel and that's both transient business travel. So those short trips where you're just going for meetings but also all the big get togethers that were a part, I guess of everyone's calendar. So for, for someone like myself, that was an ITB The Big Travel Fair in March in Berlin. And that was proceeded by the Hotel Investment Conference. We had the Arabian Travel market, World travel market. So all of those sort of larger meetings and conferences and exhibitions and then all the smaller ones as well, which were were very important. They've all, well, they've all gone on to zoom, if they still exist.- And I should probably warn everybody or flag the fact that we both agreed we'd wear or dress casual today. But Tom being Tom has a quirky sense of humour decided he would put on a shirt and tie. So thank you for that, Tom.- Well, the top half, is in the quirky bit. It's what I'm wearing on the bottom half which is nothing at all. If it goes badly, I'm just going to move the camera.- The other thing for the sake of clarity or transparency I should say that my company TravelMedia we work with Tom and Business Travel Magazine and we manage Tom's YouTube channel. So normally we would be editing Tom's content- [Tom] Will this be on there or will it be on your YouTube channel?- It'll be on the TravelMedia. Well we can put it up onto your one as well Tom, Why not.- Let's see how it goes.- Different audiences but I suppose that raises the question. And normally we will be editing content from when you were flying. So you would spend a lot of your time on the road, visiting hotels, visiting airports and travelling business class and reviewing the product. You've been unable to do that. So for most of us we've gone online but you have very much been able to do that. So what have you been doing from a business traveller perspective?- Well, we're still, I mean we're still producing the print magazine and the schedule of that has gone down a fair bit. So we used to be 10 times a year. I think we probably only have three issues since the lockdown last March. So three issues in 12 months, got another one coming out in May and we hope to gradually ramp it back up. But obviously so much is uncertain at the time of this recording, which is, you know right at the end of March, beginning of April. So still been doing the magazine, really good traffic on the website as you'd expect cause everyone wants to know what the travel news is. And as well as all the news we're also doing a number of features around the sort of things that people are looking for. So around the so-called vaccine passports and why in fact, you shouldn't call them passports, where you can get COVID tests, you know, any kind of relevant information that we update pretty much every day. We try not to take the sort of sensationalist approach that you'll read in some of the press. Cause obviously the title is "Business Traveller." So people actually just want to have the information without us being too campaigning. Having said that, it's very tempting to campaign sometimes when you've seen the complete mess that our respective governments, by which I mean the Irish government and the British government although French government isn't much better, is it? Is made of travel. So, so that's what we've been doing it's mainly busy as ever in terms of information but not much travel. I think the last time I went anywhere was the Canary islands on a trip that you were on as well. And that was, we were hoping everything was going to reopen. Was that June last year or May or something like that- July of last year. So July 2020. Yes.- Yeah, so that was the last trip. There's this talk of only three or four weeks time of going to the WTTC conference, which is in Cancun, Mexico. So we'll see whether that happens. But just getting there and back is a bit of a challenge. I think British Airways have got direct flights but only twice a week. You don't want to go via the US transit via the US cause i think then you have to quarantine in the US I think. so. I'm still trying to find out about that one. So, you know, long story, it's been a pretty terrible time for travel and terrible for so many people who've lost their jobs in travel but we just have to look forward and, you know we're lucky with the vaccinations and we have to hope that somehow they managed to reopen borders but obviously, it's not great news in Europe at the moment for short haul travel and, you know and as for meetings, you know the sort of thing we're talking about now meetings seem a long way off, other than domestic meetings.- Can I ask you, in terms of the audience watching this is primarily PCOS based in Ireland and the UK, but also a lot of convention bureaus based around Europe. People normally we would be talking to and working with on a regular basis. And that's the purpose of these conversations. Is to, I suppose, keep people in the loop and any of us based outside of the UK but still in Europe are looking at the UK and seeing an amazing success story in terms of, at the moment, I think we're 30 plus million vaccinations and Europe as a whole has not done very well and is very much behind the curve. That said, I think the Penny's starting to drop in terms of, it's great now that we see the UK doing so well but then as a visitor or as a traveller from the UK where can you go if the rest of Europe is so far behind. Do you think the UK will open up when it comes to I think two dates that I note are of May 17th and June 21st I can see the UK opening internally, but, you know in terms of external travel, do you see that happening?- You know, it's so difficult to say. I mean, when they start to talk about, if all things were equal, I would say, yes it's when they start to talk about these new variants. And obviously everyone's scared that somehow the variants are going to be resistant to vaccines and that it's going to cause a new problem. And, you know, we did see that last year when suddenly there was this new variant that was 70% more, supposedly 70% more contagious. So it's almost impossible to tell. I mean, I know I talked to a lot of people who are active on the sort of campaigning side and also ones who were supposedly contributing to the global travel task force which is the one that's going to report in April the 12th and whose report the UK government is going to base its decision on. Supposedly I think the one thing that we've realised over the last year is that for all the talk of how important travel is, and I know that everyone here believes that. And it's true, travel really is important for every reason we know including GDP For all the talk of how important it is. I have to say we've not really been listened to by government. You can understand in certain circumstances and some of the sets of circumstances we've had because of the health implications but I haven't really seen any evidence that all the lobbying has made any difference to the government decisions. And, you know, I don't hold out much hope of an early start to the summer season. I know lots of people, you know, who get in touch with me as they absolutely do use saying, "Oh, I booked in June, to go X, Y, and Z." I think it's good to book. And I think it's good to have something to look forward to. And, you know, most of those bookings can be changed for no extra cost. But I don't think that will be a lot of travelling. And certainly on the meeting side and the business travel side of things. I don't see much trouble going on in June. And then of course, you're into the summer season of July and August when people normally wouldn't be organising those kinds of events or, you know, big meetings, that kind of thing. And then, then it's all about hybrid meetings, Isn't it? Which we've written about a lot on the website. So, no, I mean, yeah, I don't. I don't see a lot of travel going on in June, July August, other than internal. So internal to France, internal to Germany and internal to the the United Kingdom.- So what we agreed, we're saying the same here in Ireland we've had two taskforce reports. One parliament report in November or December and then another one back in the summer in July and the government effectively ignored both of those. So rather concerning. We've seen though, we have seen and you said, passport, isn't the word and certificate is the word that the EU has chosen to use. I mean, you've seen people IATA, I mean, we know British airways are testing stuff at the moment but in reality it should be governments both national and Pan national, you know, leading the way. But we saw the traffic light system in most of Europe in reality, ignored that. So therefore it's going to have to be industry. And I do believe it will be industry that will lead the way. What are you seeing? Is it hotels? Is it airports or is it airlines that are that are leading the way here in terms of pushing this forward?- [Tom] Well, I mean, I would say it's airlines. I mean, I, you know, I know some pretty high up people in hotels and I haven't, again, I haven't seen much evidence that what they've said is being listened to. I mean, even around the quarantine hotels it seems they were pretty much ignored because the quarantine hotels have just been a fiasco from start to finish. But looking at the positive side I think airlines are being listened to. I also think that once the US and this could happen this could happen in the summer. If the US and the UK, for instance, can work out a bilateral whereby whether you call it travel bubble or however it works with a bit of testing. And perhaps with vaccination proof. You can start travelling between the UK and the US. I think if that does happen then that could have a snowball effect on the rest of Europe, because if Europe sees that that's happening and they can persuade the US that they, you know they're up for it as well, then that could restart travel. I mean, you know, we've got offices in Hong Kong. I used to go five, six times a year. I don't think I'll be going to Hong Kong this year at all but I do hold out the hope of getting to the US and not you know, maybe even before the autumn. So, so I'd say that will be the start of it, because if you can show, I mean, obviously it's one of the most profitable routes in the world, transatlantic particularly London New York. if you can show that it works on certain routes to and from, say the UK to the US and then that snowballs, and there is talk of it working that way. Then I think that could then lead to a general reopening but of course, every country can control its borders. But if it feels like it's missing out and its populace feels like it's missing out. Not just in terms of holidays, but in terms of business meetings and the idea of perhaps that, you know, the UK is stealing a March on French business people, Germans then, then I think that that could really help. And from what I read over the weekend, that, you know there is the possibility the US is open to the idea and because they are in a similar state of vaccination to the UK, you know, in terms of percentage of the population. So that's my big hope, UK US. It's where a lot of our readers were regularly visiting and vying to. So if that could happen then I think we really are beginning to get somewhere- Yeah agreed. And I think I've seen Roger Dow from US travel kind of pushing that message forward. And I think maybe even closer to home Ireland UK travel would make sense in terms of creating a bubble between the two, the two countries. Obviously we have an open border in Northern Ireland and I'm not sure if you're aware about visitors flying into the UK from Ireland are not required to quarantine in any shape or form- You said they're not, they're not required to- No, correct.- I mean, I've got a friend who just went over to visit his mother in Ireland, and, you know he did quarantine on the way there but on the way back he didn't- Correct, Yeah. So it kind of makes sense that that's a corridor or a bubble that we would open sooner rather than later. And I think what you're saying makes sense in terms of how you look at the airline announcements. We've seen Aer lingus make a big announcement under Manchester recently, and you look at the dates.- Yeah, that's great news, isn't it.- Yeah, but it's all summer based. It's not as if they're saying, you know, we plan to travel. I mean, you know, you're not going to launch a new route and announce a summer date unless you have some sense that that's going to happen.- Yeah. Although, I mean, it's easy for them to announce dates and it's easy for them to put things in schedules. They can take them out just as easily as well. But yeah, absolutely. That's the hope.- So what we've seen since the start of the year is the travel become a lot more difficult. I mean, as you know, I've travelled extensively since last summer, but it's become harder since January because the testing has come in. So previously there were restrictions but now we have restrictions as in quarantine but we also have testing and the PCR test is still the gold standard and it's very expensive and it's timely. Do you think going forward once we have people vaccinated that we're going to have testing as well because there's a lot of hope there when it comes to vaccinations and, you know populations being vaccinated fast, as you say US and UK would have to still test and that effectively, you know, stops that opportunity. Do you think that that's going to be the option, I mean, what are you seeing from airports and airlines in terms of their...- I think initially you will have it, I'm afraid. So for instance if we stuck with this US UK thing. I think how it will start is with testing to certainly test and release when you're returning from the US into the UK. But the hope of course is that by doing those tests and release, the figures are so low of people who were caught, you know, so it said, well, I was negative here, and I'm negative here. If the, if the numbers remain low, then this the sort of thing that can be relaxed maybe within five weeks where we've got these sort of five week things here in the UK. So, you know, if you had a situation where let's say in the beginning of July, US UK travel starts on this maybe just on some routes and they do test and release coming back in. Yes, it would stop people going on immediate summer holidays cause it'll be expensive for family of four. But, but you could see a thing where when the data started coming in and all these individual business travellers or couples who'd paid for it are coming up negative and then negative again, then that would prove the point that the airlines would be making, which is you look it's very safe on board. Anyway, even with the new, the new variants that come along that are more contagious because of that, you know the HEPA filters, the HEPA filters on board. So, you know, if, if someone is negative, when they get on board, they're not going to catch it while they're on. And when they come back, test and release proves it. And then if you also throw in the fact that, you know, if you've been vaccinated the chances of you communicating it or catching a serious illness are lowered as well. That's kind of got to be the hope. So I think it's... It will be stages. I do think the initial stage will involve testing which will make it too expensive for most people to do it for a family holiday. Cause you'd have to buy an awful lot of tests, you know and then times all of that by four. But we'll restart in a small way, business travel. And there's plenty of people who really do want to get over there, you know, in return to, you know, to meet up with colleagues that have not met in a year, maybe meet people for the first time that they've met and then interviewed only on zoom or teams or whatever. So there's a huge pent-up demand, but it will be a slow start, I think. And I think probably only on a couple of routes to begin with until they've got the data which shows since this many of the UK is vaccinated. And this much of the US, you know, and with the test and release, that just shows that there isn't a big risk. For Europe, It's more difficult because when you've got the prime minister saying things like, well, "these new variants will wash up on our shores." That kind of language just, you know, for the travel industry is so unhelpful- Agreed, yeah. So the irony is that in fact whereas many people have commented or suggested that actually this is the end of business travel that we will get used to zoom. The reality is actually it'll probably be business travel that opens up first. And as you say, it gives us the data.- Well it might on those routes. I mean, if you'd asked me a few months ago, I'd say, no it's leisure this summer. We won't get much business. I think this business travel will return. I mean, there's no doubt of that. Will it return to the same level it was in 2018 2019? No, I don't think it will. But you know, just to take the example of our magazine, we've been around since 1977, and for the vast majority of that time from 77 right the way through beyond 2000, you know. Business travel was a thing. I'm sure we were both doing it but it wasn't a thing that everyone did all the time. The big explosion has been in the last sort of 15 years deregulation, obviously with the low cost carriers, but also the vast expansion of the routes and the middle East carriers. So when we go back, when they talk about the new normal if it's the same, it won't go back to 2019 levels. I don't think, I mean, even IATA says... Sorry, the aviation body says it won't go back to 2019 levels until 2024. You could argue, it will never go back. It depends whether you throw in China and India. But is that necessarily a bad thing because I'm sure there's lots of people that are saying,"look, you know let's travel smarter, let's use this new technology you know, it's moved us all along." So, you know, speaking personally if I was travelling every 10 days, which I was. If that then became every 15 days or even every 20 days, would that be a disaster? No, no, it wouldn't, it wouldn't even be a disaster for our business because, you know, you tend to have high value business travel by which I mean ticket price and also high value as in really is adding value to the business. I think that's a positive thing, you know and this is also the more sustainable argument which is, you know, can we keep expanding aviation in the way it was expanding in 2018, 2019? I'm not, I'm not so sure. Is it a good thing? So if it goes back to some level, where would that level be? I don't know whether it would be what it was at 2000 or 2005 or 2010, but that wouldn't be it. I don't think it a disaster for many people. And when it comes to big meetings and conferences, those ,you know, ITB has always gone on, it's been going on for I don't know how many years, 30, 40 years. So, so it will retain its position in the, in the calendar. But do you, do you really need hundreds of thousands of people to go to it for it to be a success? I mean, I know you, and I would frequently say there's just too many people here. We can't, we can't get around. So I think it's, you know Business travel will return but I'm not sure the 2019 levels. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing necessarily. This might be the corrective that we needed. Might not feel that if you've just opened a new route or you've opened a new restaurant that was relying on you know, vast numbers, but you know it will be a new world but not necessarily a bad one, I don't think.- And I think it will be in many ways the same, but in many other ways different. And an example of that is, you know a trend that certainly I've seen I've done a bit of, you know long haul traffic or travel over the last few months. And what I've noticed is that the front of the aircraft is completely full, not full with business travellers, but in fact, full with high-end leisure travellers who feel more comfortable flying business and can afford to pay for all the testing. So the business class product will still exist. But the the audience might be that little bit different. What other trends are you seeing or can you predict at this stage?- Well, I mean, if it's funny, what you say about the... There was a trend anyway, I think for a more premium economy I mean, wouldn't necessarily make much difference in terms of distancing, but I think that comfort element also speaks to what we were just talking about in that if you have slightly fewer people travelling but you have them, you know and maybe they're flying slightly less often they will pay more for the tickets. And of course, you know, I'm not saying going back to the good old days, bad old days is where we want to go. But business travel used to be very, very expensive. And in the last say, 5 or 10 or 15 years it hasn't been expensive at all. You know, even last minute travel wasn't terribly expensive. So, you know, I think one of the trends is prices will go up. I think capacity has been taken out of the market. I think airlines will be very careful as they're putting capacity back in to make sure that it's profitable. So I do see, I mean, not in the short, short term they'll discount like crazy to get people travelling again. But I think once demand does return I would expect prices to be a bit higher in it. As you say, people paying a bit more for maybe a hotel that they think is safer. So maybe they've got the money to put into the various cleaning regimes that all the hotels say they're doing now. And the same for airlines. It's increased airlines costs. There's no doubt about it, but some of those costs surely are a good thing. I mean, when they're talking about," Oh, we now clean all the seat backs and the screens between every flight, anything," You weren't doing that anyway? I mean, that's pretty gross. So the fact that the plane is going to be a lot cleaner and, you know hopefully they're not going to be packed immediately so that we can actually see what the effect of all of these people travelling is in terms of, you know infection rates and those sorts of things. So I think those are the short-term ones. Long-term, I don't know what mid to long-term. It's difficult because, I was just reading this weekend. There are new airlines planning to launch and you, you know, you have to take your hats off to, you know, how optimistic people are. But there will always be a huge amount of competition. And, and that's, you know, great for us, not just in terms of pricing, but also in terms of the choice of product. So I think there's a lot to look forward to. It's just that kind of, you know, darkest before the Dawn it's just that kind of waiting for these final few months in a way is kind of, it's more agonising than the dark days say of last March perhaps when we didn't know what was coming.- Yeah, one trend I see is that I would have noticed a lot of, you know business colleagues who I wouldn't have expected this in the travel industry last year were very nervous about travel. And when I started travelling again last July, August you know, I got a bit of a backlash, but now I get a sense from people I talk to, they're just fed up at this stage and they feel that it is safe to travel now. You mentioned, you mentioned going to WTC...- Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, yeah. Sorry to interrupt the, yeah. I mean, the WTCC thing is interesting. Cause when I've mentioned to people I'm thinking about going, I haven't had the same backlash that I would have had a year ago. I think part of that as though, you know people do recognise certainly in the UK and I'm sure it's the same in Ireland and in the US that the most vulnerable in our particular nations I know this isn't the case everywhere and I'm not in any way taking it for granted but if the most vulnerable have been vaccinated it means if they catch it the much less likely to get very ill or die. And of course, you know everyone's got a different perception of risk. I mean, I guess you, and I sort of took the view that if we did catch it well, we'd survive. So, you know, we're prepared to take however small the risk was. We took all the precautions, obviously with masks and and sanitising and that sort of thing. But, but there was always that extra argument say,"Well that's fine for you, but you could communicate it to someone who then could get ill." And I think everyone understood that which is why we're being so careful. Now that isn't the case, or certainly isn't in this society. I mean, if we've had 30 million who were vaccinated and all the vulnerable have been vaccinated and everyone over the age of 50, I think we're doing. We might even be doing 40 year olds sometime soon. That argument holds less sway. That one where, okay, well, it's fine for you but not for the others. The others have been vaccinated now and it's already up there at 70, 75 80% efficacy even before they've had the second vaccination. So I think people recognise that, you know at some point we've got to reopen society. Travel is only a part of it, you know? So is going to restaurants, pubs, going to shops. I mean, we still don't have shops open other than the essential ones. So supermarkets are open, everything else is shut. So once those reopen and travel restarts in a small way domestic travel, I think people will be a bit more robust. Sure, there's going to be people who just say,"No, I'm not prepared to take the risk." Well, you know, eventually they will take the risk probably because if everyone's going on holiday and they're not. But in the short term, I think it's... I think most people once they've had the vaccination, feel a lot more confident about getting on a plane. It will be difficult for travel managers though, asking people to, you know, to go and attend something. Will you go to this meeting? because they'll, you know someone says, "well, I'm not, not really confident.? I think they'll have to accept that which is something you just wouldn't have come across then, a year ago.- Then I think that's, I mean I've seen that within our own community. Some people have said, "Look, I don't want to travel." But like I said, at the start of this point they've changed their tune recently. They feel more comfortable. So it's, it's positive to see that you're looking forward to a conference next month and that you are planning to travel. And I do get an instinct that, you know, people will, as soon as it's safe, where people feel it's safe and somebody is going to have to lead by example. So they'll be, you know, there'll be first movers on this. But I think everybody does want to get back to meetings and events. I think we're fed up with zoom, et cetera. Tom, thank you for your time today. I greatly appreciate your wisdom and experience. And for those watching today who don't know you and Business Traveller can you just tell us where they can find you online. Obviously we're not able to travel. so where can they find out more about Business Traveller.- Well, you can watch some of the... Watch some of the old reviews, I want to say older only kind of 18 months old. but there're things like the new clubs suite products on British airways and the new upper-class with Virgin. You can watch it all on the YouTube channel. So it's just YouTube businesstraveller.com. Two L's cause we're not American. So businesstraveller.com, you'll find it on there or just go to our website, businesstraveller.com and then you can read about it and then watch the videos from there. And of course, we also have Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram all the rest of it.- [Michael] Excellent, well in the description we'll add all those links so people can easily find that information. And we'll add the video links as well to the end of this. So Tom..- Had shorter hair in those days.(chuckles)- As well people can tune in to see you in pyjamas and shorter hair. So thanks again for your time. And we hope to see you in person at a conference or an event very soon, take care.(upbeat music)