Business travel is not the ideal career choice in 2021 for anyone craving job security. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), scheduled airline traffic in Europe was down 82 per cent year-on-year in November 2020 ¨C the most recent figures available.

Small wonder, with demand almost wiped out, that sector specialist C&M Travel Recruitment reports the number of roles it handled plummeted 94.8 per cent between March and November 2020.

The US-based consultant, Scott Gillespie, one of business travel¡¯s most respected commentators, wrote a much-read commentary for BTN last week in which he stated ¡°fewer travel suppliers and fewer travel managers¡± will be ¡°an unavoidable consequence of a shrinking industry¡±.

There is growing belief that shrinkage will persist even after the coronavirus pandemic passes. Last week, EY became the latest in a string of professional services firms to commit themselves to cutting business travel emissions (35 per cent below 2019 carbon emissions in EY¡¯s case) as they target company-wide sustainability goals.

Although impossible to measure objectively ¨C and some jobs have been lost for sure ¨C bloodletting appears not to have been substantial among travel managers. ¡°It¡¯s not been as widespread as you would imagine,¡± says Lynne Griffiths, CEO of business travel recruitment company Sirius Executive Search. ¡°There have been far more casualties among travel management companies, hotels and other suppliers,¡± she adds, with reports of 75 per cent contractions in employee numbers common among TMCs.

¡°In Q4 of 2020 we started to see some impact on the buyer side, which was mainly reduced headcount from larger teams, but it¡¯s settled again for now,¡± says Scott Davies, CEO of the United Kingdom & Ireland¡¯s Institute of Travel Management (ITM). ¡°We¡¯d like to think travel management roles won¡¯t be affected too much more because businesses will be focusing on their return to travel.¡±

However, warns Griffiths, travel managers will struggle to survive the crisis if they do little more than sit tight. ¡°Travel managers have to make themselves proactive,¡± she says. ¡°If you are waiting for the storm to pass and it all to be the same again, your job wilk be at risk. Make yourself visible. Don¡¯t wait to be asked to deliver a report. Take what¡¯s happening in the industry to senior management with ideas for what to do when travel starts again.¡±

Her views are echoed by Caroline Strachan, managing partner of Festive Road and a long-time career mentor to others in corporate travel. ¡°Do you want to be a travel manager being told what to do or the one who tells others what you recommend?¡± Strachan asks. ¡°I¡¯ve seen some travel managers really step up. If you show you can have high-level strategic conversations, you will be recognised for the value you bring.¡±

Strachan believes travel managers have much to contribute to senior management. Supply management is always a key issue and, in the present environment, risk management even more so. But in future, demand management could be the most important element of all. In his article, Gillespie predicted that senior management will ask, ¡°¡®How do we know if we are travelling too much or too little?¡¯ and ¡®How can we get more from all of our meetings?¡¯ New career paths [will] open for those who relish finding answers to these daunting questions.¡±

It was with similar objectives in mind that Festive Road recently launched a Purposeful Travel Framework around which travel managers can build a strategy for determining how much their business should be travelling. The framework encourages travel managers to answer that question by considering appropriate levels of travel for the good of not just the organisation but also employees and the planet.

¡°Our starting point is that people don¡¯t need to travel,¡± says Strachan. From that point, scenarios are built in which travel is the only or most productive form of interaction to achieve specific business purposes.

Working in the strategic manner championed by Strachan, Gillespie and Griffiths creates valuable connections between the travel manager and many different senior executives within a company, including chief purchasing information, operating and finance officers, and increasingly important departments like security and sustainability.

There are also new operational roles emerging. ITM¡¯s Davies says travel managers¡¯ skill sets are well suited to helping employers prepare for an eventual return to the office, while another related growth area is the management of virtual meetings.

Jef Robinson was one casualty of the wave of travel manager redundancies in the final quarter of 2020. Robinson says he was axed ¡°due to reduced volumes of travel my employer was managing.¡± However, he adds, ¡°If I¡¯d had experience in virtual meetings, I might have hung on to my job. It¡¯s a really important skill to focus on for the future.¡±

Robinson hoped to stay within travel, but with so few vacancies in the sector he was obliged to look elsewhere and just a few weeks later he landed a procurement job buying other categories. His experience of transitioning outside travel was an encouraging one for other travel managers who may be compelled to leave the sector. ¡°There are plenty of employers that would appreciate the skill set a travel manager brings,¡± says Robinson. ¡°All is not lost. You can very quickly find yourself in a new position.¡±

Qualifications certainly help. Robinson has several from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. ¡°The fact I had them was instantly recognised by the organisations to which I was applying,¡± he says.

Griffiths, Davies and Strachan all endorse Robinson¡¯s positive view of the employability of travel managers. Griffiths points to skills including negotiation, communication and managing contracts, while Davies cites specific areas of knowledge travel managers have to acquire, including the General Data Protection Regulation, employee wellbeing and, most recently, the mobility implications of Brexit.

¡°Travel management is like a general manager role: it covers demand management, supply management, HR, finance, risk and IT. It¡¯s a really transferable set of skills that could go into any industry,¡± says Strachan.

With such handsome attributes, the hope is that any travel manager losing a job won¡¯t be out of work for long. Just in case, there is help at hand for those made redundant. ITM currently offers four months¡¯ free membership to any travel manager who is furloughed or jobless, and as of 8 February will offer six- as well as 12-month membership, useful for those who worry their job may be unsafe. Membership includes access to a jobs board on which recruiters are allowed to post for free.

ITM has also launched an informal partnership with mental health charity MIND to point travel managers distressed by employment and other anxieties toward professional counselling.