Know thyself – that is the advice inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. In travel terms, that means deciding what kind of traveler you are for a particular trip. We travel in different modes and in different frames of mind, with different needs depending on why we are going and where we are headed.
Business travelers are not as monolithic as airlines and hoteliers often assume.Neither are ‘high-end’ leisure travelers (denizens of premium cabins), who might well be business travelers going on holiday. Look out too for budget leisure travelers, who could be high-end business travelers in holiday mode with the family.
Imagine a spectrum ranging from ‘hard-core’ to ‘soft-core’ business mode: deciding where you are on the spectrum can be something of a dialectical dilemma.
A hard-core business trip could be anything from clinching a deal, solving a management crisis in a subsidiary, or switching distributors or agents, to negotiating a new bank loan, or forging ties with a new political reality.
At the other extreme, a soft-core business trip might involve giving the key-note speech at a sales conference, attending an internal training seminar, or lubricating a trade jamboree in Monaco.
There is also those who try to combine business and pleasure – as exquisitely codified by the ‘business-extension’ weekend. The professional business extender typically stops over somewhere, they might take off the middle weekend, or adds two days at the end of a 10-day trip for rest and recreation; occasions when experienced travelers become tourists, with different needs and expectations.
And there is another dimension. Corporate travelers enjoy expense accounts but some have deeper pockets than others and may be more, or less, in thrall to travel policies, that reflect their status and company culture; while individual and small-business travelers, for whom travel expense may be their bottom line, are subject to different needs and priorities.
Thus there are times when it pays to charter a business jet to achieve a crucial rendezvous somewhere that is hard to reach with scheduled airlines; while the same person may fly easyJet on a short hop from London to Munich.
Business class across the Atlantic might be just the ticket if you need to spread out and get your act together for that tricky encounter in Manhattan; while coming back you may slip into an ‘entertainment’ or ‘dining’ mode, or possibly even a bad mode, reflecting your requirements and demeanour.
And why stay in a five-star hotel if all you need is a room for the night? On the other hand, a suite at the Crillon in Paris may be money well spent if you need to entertain, or make an all-singing all-dancing sales presentation; while a tiny treasure on the Left Bank may work just fine for a research, or a buying, trip.
Business travelers cherish recognition, whether they are traveling for business or pleasure, or both. Hotels that treat every guest as mystery shoppers or potential undercover VIPs can reap dividends in goodwill and future business.
I once needed to stay overnight for a business meeting in London so I shopped for a cheap room at a Holiday Inn. It was excellent value, a good experience and the people were friendly and efficient. But I was obviously down as a leisure traveler and not as a valued customer. I was lucky.
How often do you find the clichés of the glossy ads, and the marketing hype, redeemed by that elusive amalgam of friendliness and efficiency that I call ‘hospitality?’ I like to believe that people will be nice to you if you are nice to them. Alas, it doesn’t always work that way.
Last year, we checked in to the Westminster Hotel in Nice, a fine rococo building on the Promenade des Anglais. I was on business and Madame had come along to help and had made the booking with some residual British Airways airmiles. We got a lousy room and a reception to match: I had to summon vestigial management skills to get the room changed, and rearrange their attitude.
Dissolve to a decade ago, which shows that a truly grand hotel is still a class act: I was doing a cover story for an American glossy travel magazine on the Côte d’Azur, with a photographer from New York. We entered the Negresco Hotel in Nice, the grandest of the Belle Epoque palaces almost next door to the Westminster Hotel, in pursuit of a room for him.
Nothing strange about that, except that photographers can sometimes look very strange. Bob had red braces and a purple waistcoat. And I looked like the wrath of God in a black leather jacket, white trousers, espadrilles, no socks, and a mane of windswept hair.
But we were received with elaborate courtesy by a liveried voiturier, who took the keys of our tiny car, doorman and a desk clerk. None of the usual: ‘Ahem. How will you be settling your bill, sir?’ ‘Can we need to take an imprint of your credit card?’
I asked to see the general manager and explained to him why we were there and what we wanted to do and congratulated him on the charm and hospitality of his staff. The manager smiled. ‘Ah, yes, Monsieur, you can never tell these days who you have in front of you!”
‘People are our most precious asset’ is a corporate mantra that has a hollow ring in many organisations, whether it applies to staff or customers. Airlines and hotels are supposed to be service industries, but I’m always amazed at how differences in demeanour by the people at the sharp end can make or break a travel experience.
Years ago, in my corporate days, I always stayed at the same small, somewhat decrepit, hotel in Paris, because of the charm and graciousness of Nicolas, the elderly and erudite White Russian night porter. Alas, Nicolas is dead, and anyway the Residence Lord Byron has changed hands. But I will return to the three-star Hotel Bristol, a similarly tatty property with a big heart in Avignon.
Cattle class on one airline can be a better experience than business class on another. You must have noticed how often two flights on the same airline is like flying with two different carriers. Frequent fliers can detect a bad crew from a good one the moment they board the plane. Hoteliers can assess a hotel within ten minutes of arrival. And I am learning to do the same.
Recognition should start before you arrive to check in at the airline desk or hotel. The problem is that how people book travel is what they are to the travel trade. Book a cheap flight or a hotel through a discount site and you’re likely to be received as a tourist – with all that that implies – even if you are a business traveler in leisure mode.
The right kind of recognition could from the colour of your plastic, or from a secret code entered by your business travel agent (‘Do everything possible to assist’). A simple phone call can help to establish where you’re coming from.
It all comes down to what kind of traveler you are and what kind of traveler you are perceived to be. The challenge for the travel trade is to identify the mode people are travelling in; and for travelers, to establish who they are and their needs for each trip – and, crucially, to make sure they are remembered afterwards.
Roger Collis 2006 Timesonline; CNN Traveller; International Herald Tribune