CNN Business Traveller

SHOW #76

Back To Basics: An Austere Year For Business Travel

The Economist Intelligence Unit will publish a report, “The Austere Traveller,” on Monday Feb 9th. The study shows that expectations of business travellers are changing. Economic pressures mean that executives now care less about luxury and instead are going back to basics. It is expected in 2009 that we will be travelling less, for shorter periods and trading down in hotels, airlines and restaurants. So on this month’s show, in the face of austerity, we’re all about solutions to the credit crunch. We speak to the Economist Intelligence Unit and Amadeus about the report and to business travellers themselves, to see how they are really being affected in the downturn.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Corporate travel budgets have been cut right back. If senior executives are downgrading, middle management or lower aren’t travelling at all. They’re staying put and video-conferencing instead. There have been incredible technological advances in video-conferencing like Teleprescence, where you have life-size images on plasma screens and it looks as though you are sitting across a table from one another. We are about to be offered an even better solution - hologram-conferencing developed by Musion. The London-based company has developed a system where a hologram walks into the studio and has a virtually real one-to-one conversation. Richard Quest interviews one of the co-founders, Ian O'Connell, using the hologram technology and discusses how it will offer solutions to business travellers who are constrained by the economic downturn…but also concerned about the environment.

THE JUMBO HOSTEL

Business travellers are down-grading in both airline class and hotels. In the hotel industry, it is the budget boutique sector that stand to benefit from the credit crunch. It’s not all doom and gloom; business travellers can still search for new experience and add a bit of effervescence to their trips even when the purse strings have been tightened. Take the Jumbo Hostel next to Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first aircraft in the world to be converted into a hotel when it opened on January 15. Oscar Dios bought a former Pan Am Boeing 747 that was standing abandoned by Arlanda Airport. There are 25 rooms, with a bunk bed, an overhead luggage compartment and a flat-screen TV with entertainment as well as flight information. There’s a small cafeteria just inside the front entrance, two rows of rooms on each side of the aisle, and showers and toilets in the rear. The upper deck will be a conference room with first-class flight seats. The best room, of course, is the cockpit. CNN’s Adrian Finighan spent a night at the 747 hotel.

INFLIGHT EARNERS

The airline industry has had a tough year with rocketing fuel prices, bankruptcies and takeovers. To continue weathering this economic storm, airlines have to innovate. We look at some of the ways in which airlines have managed to raise revenue – onboard advertising. Companies and tourism boards see this as a great opportunity to reach hundreds of people at a time, having their ads on the back of the fold-away trays, overhead compartments, and soon, on sick bags!

JANUARY SALES

More than ever, hotels are feeling the pressure to keep their occupancy levels up. Two hotels in London are practically giving their rooms away. They are selling rooms for one British pound. Customers can only book one room for one night but can then extend their stay and pay full price. The plan is to stimulate bookings for the months ahead, which are traditionally quiet but in the recession, could potentially be empty! The Hoxton Hotel is selling 500 rooms for one pound and another 500 rooms at 29 pounds. The first time last year, they sold all 1,000 rooms online within 11 minutes and had over 300,000 people trying to book.