Skift Take
With workplaces uninhabited again due to a debilitating week-long rail strike, and airports under pressure, travel is suffering an obstacle, particularly organization travel. In public relations terms, the UK needs to be in crisis management mode.
Matthew Parsons
Overstretched airports and nationwide rail strikes this week are knocking the brakes on the UK’s financial recovery and triggering a blow to the country’s track record, specialists have cautioned.
Passengers are currently becoming jaded, cautious of flying due to airline hold-ups and cancelations around the world, but the current wave of travel disturbance throughout the UK looks set to deter service tourists.
Widely flowed photos of a mountain of unclaimed luggage on social media probably wasn’t the image Heathrow Airport wanted the world to see today, but it’s the current in a series of incidents that likewise consisted of the death of a guest while disembarking at Gatwick Airport.
Heathrow this week asked airlines to top flights to overtake hold-ups brought on by a technical glitch with its luggage system. It substances problems for the UK’s biggest airport, following a stalled recovery in March due to issues from U.S. travelers over war in Europe and rising air fares. Gatwick also asked airline companies to cut down this summertime due to continuing labour scarcities, which one airline boss has put down to Brexit.
Empty Chairs
Now a week-long rail and underground tube strike, coordinated by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Employees, is additional hindering the country’s recovery. It said its dispute originates from the government’s choice to cut more than $4 billion in funding.
Lots of companies are returning to work-from-home-home policies last seen throughout the height of the pandemic.
“More travel disturbance will continue to have an effect on the return to organization travel,” warned Catherine Logan, local vice president, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at the Global Company Travel Association. “We have learnt from the last 2 years that a return to office has a direct correlation on a return to service travel. If staff members are unable to travel to workplaces to go to conferences, this will affect organization, company travel and the economy.”
UKHospitality, which represents 740 companies running 100,000 places in England, Scotland, and Wales, said the rail strikes will cost the sector more than $660 million in lost income, while one expert told Skift that Europeans they fulfilled over the previous couple of weeks had said they hesitated to go to upcoming travel industry-related conferences and events in the UK due to these continuous problems.
“Uncertainty around assurance of supply, disruption and reliability definitely undermines traveler confidence and for that reason the assistance senior leaders may provide relating to service travel,” stated Scott Davies, CEO at the Institute of Travel Management. “Nevertheless, the problems that we are seeing have numerous causes and companies need to look to support their people and culture, their clients and their providers by doing all possible to continue the move.”
The rail strikes in particular present a risk if they continue into the summertime, argued one trade body employer.
“They are totally against everything the travel market represents,” said Clive Wratten, CEO of the UK’s Organization Travel Association. “Individuals are being left unable to get to work, stranded in unfamiliar places not able to get home and deprived of hard-won income.” He added that the government and the unions needed “to navigate the table so that we can have the summer season we deserve as we recover from the devastations of the pandemic.”
Lessons Discovered
The argument around labor, consisting of scarcities, incomes, task prospects and market effectiveness, will likely continue throughout the year, with another expert explaining the UK as being in a “chicken and egg situation.”
“The industry needs to purchase its people and pay them appropriately, but to do this they require to sell travel to a market that is jaded and tired of the issues they are experiencing around cancellations and delays,” said Bex Deadman, owner of 8 Stage consultancy.
“A different method to the remuneration of travel services is needed. Since right now those at the front end are selling a product, in this case ‘travel’, which can’t be satisfied at the back-end for a variety of factors that then impacts the whole chain. We are an industry that relies on trust which is quickly being eroded.”
The brand perception of the UK is likewise at risk.
“The failure of UK airline companies to deal with the numbers of tourists this summer season is doing real damage to the UK’s credibility on the global stage,” stated Andrew Stephenson, director of marketing, Europe, the Middle East and Africa at customer information company Treasure Data, who argued the nation’s airline company market faces a steep climb to recover its standing over the coming months
“It’s mostly down to inadequate planning, and the problems are intensified by poor data management by the airlines, leading to sub-standard customer experience” he added. “Airlines need to much better identify and develop individualized interactions to consumers to alert them of any prospective disturbance, and offer customized offers and benefits as settlement.”