Since February, we’ve been taking a deep dive into our nine Macroscope trends, updating them for 2024 and beyond and sharing unique insights from our Roaders. Designed to keep you abreast of the changes we’re seeing and how to future-proof your programme, each podcast episode has industry insights and expertise, all imparted in our mission to Create Better travel and meetings management.
Four episodes have been released to date. The most recent explore two topics that have been on the radar for years, but whose importance has never quite found them at the top of the To-Do list. However, a collective lightbulb moment means that suddenly the shifting importance of meetings and the value placed on whole trip experience are getting a lot more attention.
We’ve coined them “The Great Realisations”.
It was always about the meeting
You know those ideas, that when you look at them a slightly different way, you can’t help but say, “Obviously!” – That’s how we feel about travel and meetings.
The integration of travel and meetings has been a high ideal for years. Despite the fact that more often than not we are travelling to meet, these sister categories have rarely achieved a truly coordinated approach.
Triggered by the pandemic, we were forced to rethink “the meeting” and find different ways to achieve the same outcomes, whilst traditional options were unavailable. Not only has this brought terms like virtual, hybrid and multi-hub into mainstream meetings management vernacular, it has challenged us to consider the most effective way of achieving the meeting’s objectives.
This brings the management of travel and meetings alignment back into sharp focus, as industry professionals around the world let out a low groan of acknowledgement that this is how we should have been doing it for years.
But only now has the decade for a true strategic meetings and travel management programme arrived.
Hear Meetings & Events experts Meredith Smith and Ian Jones discuss this topic in more depth in Episode 3 of The Macroscope podcast
The Whole Trip Experience
Another trend that has been on our collective radar for years, but again never got full attention is the concept of a whole trip experience.
In recent years we’ve seen travel managers start to reinvent their travel programmes, placing the traveller at the very core. This goes beyond a nod to well-being, or even duty of care and policy compliance.
Servicing the traveller was never just about the booking, but somehow, we let it become that. The silver lining of the last three years is that the whole trip has moved into sharp focus. Anxiety, complexity and support increased because of the pandemic. Service issues have grown. And there is a new focus on environmental impact.
All of these combined finally brought the concept of a truly holistic trip experience to the fore. Travellers and travel managers are eager to work with suppliers who can bring them what they need – from booking to landing back home.
One thing is for sure: Tomorrow’s travellers will set the rules of engagement.
Katie Virtue and Alison O’Sullivan debate the concept of the Whole Trip Experience in episode four, which you can catch here
Where next?
Like all great realisations, once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t put them back in. Now the roles of meetings and whole trip experience have finally made their way onto our collective to-do lists, we need to seize the moment and act.
These are not a couple of flash in the pan trends. They are important components to the future of business travel and meetings, and they are demanding our attention. So, let’s go with the momentum, capture that lightbulb moment and start to Create Better.