Facing Up To Travel's Role As a Force For Good

Truly Inspirational - Phocuswright?Europe?

By Charlotte Lamp Davies, Founder, A Bright Approach??

After more than two years of uncertainty, it’s great to see some normality returning to the travel industry. For me, as a strongly committed people person in my private and professional lives, the return of face-to-face events is one of the most welcome.?

Phocuswright Europe was always towards the top of the A-list of travel tech conferences. The pressure was on for its Amsterdam show – its first European post-COVID event?- to be even better than we remembered.?

If my contacts and clients are anything to go by, the event was a success, personally and professionally, but however successful an event (and this one was), the post wrap-up needs to be honest and we need to accept there are always lessons which must be learnt. I speak from a personal as well as a business perspective here. Always good to recap.

One thing I would like to raise is how events and conferences will deal with “awkward questions”, the first of which is whether or when we will be “over" covid and what that means in terms of short-term disruption and long-term recovery.

On site at Amsterdam, there was very little mention of the war in Ukraine and its direct and indirect impact on travel and the tech suppliers supporting the industry. I have many personal and business contacts from the region – and I wasn’t the only one in the room who could say that - and some of us felt a little baffled that the war was not discussed more. Ukraine had a great reputation as a tech hub when the war began and perhaps more can be done by travel conferences to support one the biggest sources of tech talent.?Part of what we as a travel industry need to do is to reinforce our credentials as a force for good by facing up and calling out the bad.

On a positive note, we’re making great strides in addressing the awkward questions around sustainability – the tagline for Phocuswright Amsterdam was “Fast Forward: A Strong, Sustainable Future” and the impression I got from the sessions, breakouts and networking events was that there is a wider acceptance and awareness of sustainability. But we need to be braver, in what we talk about and in what we do…

The executive round table on sustainability covered a lot of topics and kudos to moderator Mitra Sorrels of Phocuswire who said, “there is more to sustainability than climate” which is perhaps obvious but is often overlooked and needs to be part of the conversation.

I left the event feeling energised and invigorated. The Young Leaders Summit (group pictured above), led by Aurelia Krau and Walter Buschta, was one of my personal highlights. I dipped in and out of the sessions and felt the energy and talent in the room every time.?The fact that this initiative has grown and developed so quickly proves that online travel is seen as?a great career option by super-smart twenty- and thirtysomethings from around the globe. The young leaders are doing a lot to promote our industry to their peers. We should never lose sight of how important it is for the great and good of today to embrace the great and good of tomorrow.

We should also never lose sight of how important it is to continue to highlight the industry’s innovators, and this is an area where Phocuswright has led the way in what is a very strong field -?almost every event has a variation on the Innovation Launch and long may this continue.?It's always a favorite part of the conference for me. Let's not forget how tough it is to innovate and in travel we need all the help we can get.

Congratulations to the popular vote winner Its July, which offers a way for families to meet up and share experiences while travelling. Kudos to Travel Ledger, a travel settlement platform bringing the benefits of blockchain technology to B2B payment flows, which pitched strongly and takes great pride in having got the thumbs up from all the judges. It seems we have a successful story of a company building on blockchain in travel.?More to come from Travel Ledger and from other players embracing this technology in travel.?

After a two year pause the travel industry is back, stronger and with a renewed sense of purpose. It was evident that, as well as the small-talk, hugs and catch ups, there were lots of important commercial conversations taking place, deals being done, partnerships formed, leads generated.??

I am optimistic that we can face up to the awkward questions and use our?global influence to drive positive change.