Every year, the European business travel industry meets to self-celebrates its achievements. From 21-22 February, London is the melting pot of any important in travel. The business travel show intends to showcase news and established solutions to the corporate travel environment.
We at REISESICHERHEIT.CH are of course especially interested in innovations in the field of safety, medicine and duty-of-care. We wish to assist readers of this blog who cannot attend the show, and additionally help visitors better plan their visit.
That is why we have already had a closer look at this year Business Travl Show exhibitors and their products. In the coming weeks, we will as much as possible follow up on the various trends presented at the show.
First, we learned that safety is indeed a real topic at BTS. Per a survey presented by the organizers, security is ranked as the top priority in the travel sector, only topped by costs savings (of course).
An exciting reading on that study can be downloaded here.
Exhibitors – some well-known and a few interesting new ones!
At least 18 exhibitors will be presented in various related categories such as "security services", "medical evacuation services" or "risk management & assessment".
We are of course a little bit disappointed that almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon companies present at the show. Unfortunately, there is not a single continental supplier represented.
Anvil Group and International SOS are among the known big and bigger ones that are always worth a visit. Tracking provider iJet comes along for the first time with red24, its brand-new acquisition in Europe. This is worth a visit to the iJet booth. Except the above-mentioned providers, no other seems to have a fully integrated solution that includes medicine, security and technology (tracking, information). Intrinsic, a cooperation between CEGA and Solace Global, is the only other pretending having such an offer. Intrinsic and Drum Cussac are also among the most active conference program providers during this 3 days of the show.
A visit at Mayden Voyage is also recommended. This Leed-based company concentrates specifically on the needs of female business travelers and has a few interesting solutions on offer.
In addition to that some specialized providers such as beTravelwise in the training environment might be interesting to speak to.
What's new in the conference program?
Travel security and duty of care are of course highly rated at the shows conference program - though, only starting from Day 2, February 22nd. The current state of the world promises exciting discussions and full venues.22nd, at 10 pm, CEGA and Solace will start with "Evolution of crisis management - threats are changing so are the solutions". Per the description, this will be mainly about traveler tracking. Unfortunately, the presentation will be help without a corporate client. From 14H30, Drum Cussac teaches on "Protecting the safety of your global mobile population". Again, it apparently will not be possible to present in conjunction with a corporate customer. We highly recommend any visitor to attend the panel discussion on "Build a crisis management plan" at 16am. Again, unfortunately without a corporate representative, but with a promising provider mix. The exhibition will end on Day 3 with a speech from Drum Cussac on "safety and security - a best practice guide for beginners". Finally, this time supported by a corporate, Philip Stewart, corporate security at PWC.
TTT - Terror, Trump, Technology! What is in for us?
Overall, we look forward seeing what is really new in the industry and how the individual providers might react to the "new" challenges of today’s world around Donald Trump and IS terror. In addition to this we are curious to see what strategies security suppliers might have to convince continental customers to buy their services.
We shall keep you posted on developments…at www.businesstravelrisks.com.