The Advantage Travel Partnership has launched a white paper to help its business travel members to “transform” their commercial relationships.
Called ‘The formula for success: How to transform business relationships into remarkable partnerships’, it was announced during the business travel session at the consortium’s conference in Mexico on Thursday (May 16).
The white paper is based on reports and findings from the Advantage Business Travel Symposium – which took place in London in February – along with insights provided by a business travel expert consultancy called temoji.
More than half (53%) of the symposium audience considered purposeful relationships the one area they wanted to thrive above all others.
The white paper sets out a formula for creating a “remarkable” partnership and looks at obstacles that need to be overcome.
The consortium said “growing divisions in the industry increasingly pose challenges for the TMC, companies and travellers alike”.
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Sonia Michaels, head of business travel services and events at Advantage, said: “As our members know, collaboration is a core value of ours and the desire to build strong, remarkable partnerships throughout our industry was voiced again and again at this year’s symposium.
“The White Paper builds on that desire to discover how to make this concept a reality, putting into practice what we heard, and discussed on the day.”
Andrea Caulfield-Smith, global business travel managing director at the consortium, added: “Having recently joined the Advantage team, it is already clear to me the importance placed on helping our members to develop the necessary partnerships to enable each and every one of their businesses to thrive in a competitive business travel landscape.
“One of the key themes that came out of the symposium was personalisation and I think SME TMCs play a large role and can deliver the more personalised service that buyers are looking for.”
Ian Jones, consultant at temoji, commented: “Being a member-led travel network and one of the largest TMC networks in Europe, the themes of partnership and collaboration are clearly very much part of what makes Advantage tick.
“We have worked hard to capture the wisdom, insights and vision of the room [during the symposium], where Advantage members and industry experts tackled this conundrum head-on, bringing you not just a summary of the day, but consolidating pain points of our industry into actionable, tangible takeaways.”
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