Corporate travel managers should ask travellers to justify a journey before sanctioning spending, according to a leading member of the German business travel association, the VDR.
Andrea Zimmermann told the ITB business travel forum in Berlin last week: “Travel managers should be asking, ‘Do we really need to send people?’ Travellers should ask, ‘Do I really need to go?’ Think of the CO2 emissions.”
She said there had been horror in the industry when the VDR first suggested corporations should avoid travelling, but Zimmermann argued this was now happening.
“By not travelling you save fuel, you cut emissions, you save funds, you cut travel time, you raise efficiency and you mitigate the risks [of travel] to employees,” she said.
Zimmermann chairs the VDR’s small and medium-size enterprise (SME) committee and lectures at the VDR Academy.
She said the idea of not travelling was popular with those who travel repeatedly for work. “They are happy to unpack and stay home,” said Zimmerman.
“Encourage people to think before they book and ask, ‘Do you need to take the trip’.”