Business traveller profiles are changing

At the Best Western Business Travel Summit held Jan. 22, l to r, Tony Pollard, president, HAC; Nathalie Belanger, GM rewards management, Aeroplan; Dorothy Dowling, senior VP, marketing and sales, Best Western; Tanya Racz, president, NBTA Canada; and Richard Bartrem, VP culture and communications, Westjet.

TORONTO—While business travel isn’t likely to dry up anytime soon, the bearish economy is affecting the habits and expectations of business travellers, the length of stay and type of accommodation and transportation they are booking.

This was the consensus of a panel of industry experts at Best Western’s Business Travel Summit, held Jan. 22 at the Toronto Board of Trade.

“We’ve seen the same number of transactions, but a five to 10 per cent decline in length of stay,” noted Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president, marketing and sales for Best Western.

“But Best Western is bullish in the business traveller area,” she added, citing Apple’s introduction of the iPod as an example of a company that seized an opportunity during a slower time frame. “We’re positioning our brands for the long term.”

Tony Pollard, president of the Hotel Association of Canada gave some statistics from his organization’s annual travel survey, conducted by Fleishman-Hillard in December.

“Between September and December, 2008, 48 per cent said they would be doing the same amount of travel, 22 per cent said less travel and 18 per cent said more—and that’s a wash.”

But Pollard also noted that habits were changing—business travellers were looking for greater value or something for free.  He noted that the amount of time they were travelling was less.  “They’re still travelling—just finding different ways of doing it.” He gave an example of a United Airways flight from Chicago to Ottawa, which arrived in Ottawa at 1 a.m., being 85 per cent booked.  Those travellers were probably avoiding the cost of an overnight stay.

While Westjet set a load factor record in December, Richard Bartrem, the company’s VP of culture and communications notes a softness in booking patterns. “There are more last minute bookings by people hoping there are great and wonderful seat sales out there.  But business continues to run—it’s not as dire as the pundits say it is.”

An economic slump means lots of business for the loyalty points operations, according to Nathalie Belanger, general manager of rewards management for Aeroplan.  “Partners are leveraging Aeroplan currency aggressively, and members are also using their miles.”
Best Western is keeping its eye on its loyalty program customers, since they provide 50 per cent of the revenue mix, says Dowling.

One of the most dramatic results of this year’s HAC travel survey was the change in attitudes of business travellers towards reward points, Pollard said. Fifty-four per cent said points were very important in 2008, compared to just 32 per cent in 2007.