Recently, Business Travel Management Limited (BTM), a corporate and managed travel solution company, celebrated its partnership with CWT, a global business-to-business-for-
What does the partnership with CWT mean for BTM?
Business Travel Management Limited (BTM) has always been at the forefront of travel technology for not only Nigeria but for West and Central Africa as well. So, within the region we operate, we have been focused on providing efficiencies to the travel, aviation, hospitality and domestic tourism industry.
One of the challenges that we have always faced is convincing partners whether technology or card services providers. We have approached several people to bring their technology in Nigeria and in West and Central Africa, and they insisted that unless we are based in South Africa and in recent times in East Africa; places like Kenya or markets that infrastructure, safety measures among others, where they could easily forecast profitability. So, unless we were based in such countries or those two countries specifically, they are not willing to provide us with technology.
One of the things that BTM did was to go out there to source technology ourselves, recruit our team members and grow our technology arm, which is BTM Tech so that we could develop and provide this technology ourselves.
Whatever technology we brought in or we developed here at BTM, we will then provide to a lot of our international clients within the network we are in. We provide to Cameroon, Senegal, Kenya and so on. But it was not a sustainable model.
With the CWT partnership, BTM can now match the level of service delivery that we are able to provide with the level of technology that we require. It means that we can improve the standard of managed travel solutions and travel technology within West and Central Africa.
We are looking forward to working with CWT, they are the strongest travel management company globally and also the only company that is focused on B2B4E (business to business solutions for everyone). It is mostly for employees because what usually happens is that corporate and travel management organisations come to deal with each other and sell technology and travel solutions to each other.
What CWT does is to customize the technology and the travel management programmes (travel apps) that they have for the end-user, so that the person that is doing the booking is able to control and has full oversight of their travel programme, travel spend, their bookings among others.
What are the targets BMT wants to achieve with CWT partnership in the short period?
Obviously, there is a strategic plan with CWT going by the way they want to focus on Africa, and the developments they want to do in Africa. They appointed and agreed to work with BTM to achieve all these, and let us not pretend that this is a one-way decision. We know what CWT is all about; they organised themselves globally and they positioned themselves in such a manner that they will be an asset to the African continent. They do not operate in the same way lots of other travel management companies do whereby they send somebody to sign contracts and they disappear. They are a very involved organisation. Within this year, we have had 20 flights between CWT and BTM in Nigeria. They have sent their directors to Nigeria to help us with the implementation, to talk about technology, about training and the African continent. Their plan for Africa is a partnership plan and an elevation plan as opposed to how much money they can get out of this continent. They are looking at being well-placed as a strategic partner within Africa. So, the fact that over the next five years, they are looking at doing this with not only BTM, but also with other strong African partners that they already have on the continent, it is a very exciting thing for me. We are now looking at driving the travel technology and managed technology space, and providing business efficiencies to indigenous Nigerian companies primarily, as well, global and multinational companies, so that they can do business easily within Africa because what they can bring to the table is going to be beneficial to Africa countries.
I love travelling in Africa and seeing other countries. It breaks my heart when you go to different countries and see the poor level of development. We tend not to realize the level we are at in Nigeria and the expertise we have to share with some of our neighbours in Africa. BTM is present in Angola, we are looking at different markets that we have interest in and we do have a strategy, we are focused. Energy; oil and gas is the driving force in Nigeria at this point in time, with lots of industries coming up at the same time in Nigeria and in other strategic countries around Africa. We are interested in how these things are going to happen, we are interested in those countries, whether it is to work with the CWT partners in that country, if there is nothing in that country, maybe we can be the CWT partner in that country, but that connection with the CWT network, forging it and making it very strong, is what we are really focused on and it is worth exciting for us over the next few years.
What are the trends in corporate travel?
The travel, aviation and tourism industry has gone through several levels of evolution. When BTM started, we were the first company to provide managed travel solutions. Before there was no travel management company in Nigeria; they really did not exist. What we had was travel agents (but not in a disparity manner) that dealt directly with the end user.
So, it was mostly leisure travel and if people were travelling for business it was not in a structured way or managed travel solution. When we were working with previous partners, we recognised the fact that business in Nigeria and Africa was changing. Africa has also always been seen as the final frontier, it is seen as the last place that business can be done, and money can be made. International and global entities are now focusing on Africa because of the volume, the opportunity, and resources. The mining companies were there, then Nigeria found oil and gas, the energy sector then became extremely prevalent, especially in Nigeria because we were previously a British colonial entity, lots of those global ties are still affiliated with Nigeria.
Nigeria sits in a very strategic position; we call it the armpit of Africa, whereby we have access to desert, land transportation, and the sea. It is very easy to get to us from Europe, from South Africa, and the United States through the ocean. So, we were very strategically positioned. With the discovery of oil, and focus on the energy sector we then became globally relevant and the shift in business in Nigeria and the West and Central African then metamorphosized. It then became obvious that with the global attention, especially from multinationals on Nigeria, business solutions needed to be more organised. So, where you had investors and multinationals coming in, they needed to be properly managed, they needed safety and tracking measures, they needed proper ticketing, decent accommodation to a certain standard. So, global entities have standards of travel for their employees and as travel management company, we needed to adhere to these standards of travel; whether of safety, manage the rotations, standard of car, helicopter services, we could not do that as a travel agency and we could not do it to the level it was required without a global partner.
So, the travel industry shifted; that is where the trend was, we still have a very buoyant leisure market. Nigerians love to travel. We are respected when we travel, people see Nigerians as spenders, explorers, and travellers. So, that leisure market is going to always be there.
With the interests and spotlight on Africa, we needed to improve corporate and managed travel solutions. I am not saying that everything is at the level where we need to be, but we can get there.
The way we can get there is through strategic partnerships. There is no such thing as ‘I can do it by myself’ or ‘I know everything’ because the way in which business is moving and the way the travel industry is moving, it is extremely fast and that is through the development of technology. Of course, technology changes rapidly and always improving. If you look at your phone, what it can do today is more than what it did two years ago. With technology, things are getting more sophisticated. It is the same thing with the travel industry; aeroplanes have gotten more sophisticated, their equipment has gotten more sophisticated, now you can work in the air as you fly over the ocean with wifi on board. Everybody is consistently connected and everybody wants immediate responses, it is not enough to call your travel consultant and he says ooh let me look up the fare and get back to you. People want answers immediately; they want to make decisions immediately. They either want to do it themselves or have consultants who have everything on their fingertips.
In order to provide that service, you need to make sure that you are working with the best, that your fingers are on the pulse of technology developments, and we cannot do that when we only look at our country, our region and our views. A lot more needs to be done and many globally strategic partnerships need to be forged in order for the Nigerian tourism, inbound, outbound and the managed travel space to improve.
Do you think that the managed travel space is improving in Nigeria?
It is definitely improving and that is one of the best things of being the pacesetter; it wakes other people up and encourages competition. At BTM, everybody is consistently improving themselves. We have training programmes for staff members such as IATA courses among others, which they attend for continuous improvement.
Olufemi Adefope, the chairman of BTM and my father, was strategic in appointing the partners that we worked with within our network before. In the network we are working with now, we have very close relationships with them. It is very interesting working with them before as competitors and now as partners because we know what our strength and weaknesses are and what our competitors’ strength and weaknesses are.
So, we can plan, share our views and work together. It is improving because of the competition in the market and the global standards that we are now required to adhere to. If nobody said you have to respond to me within 30 seconds of the phone ringing, we wouldn’t have found a way or technology to help us answer the phone within 30 seconds. If someone said we need data and we need you to report the data every second, we have to find a technology partner that will help us track the data.
With the global requirement and with what companies are doing internationally in order to compete, things are improving. It is obvious now that competition is not your neighbour because the internet has made the world smaller. Your competitor is somebody doing something similar on the other side of the planet and if you cannot deliver on the same standard that person on the other side of the planet is delivering, you will sink.
So, global standards are forcing improvements and conversations. We are not where we need to be, but as more standards and more requirements are needed by businesses in Nigeria and globally, we will continue to improve.
At what percentage is corporate travel business growing in Nigeria?
Corporate and business travel in Nigeria is on the increase. The corporate travel market in Nigeria has been growing by 25 percent in the last three years and it continues to increase. Globally, corporate business is said to reach $1.7 trillion by 2022. That is the size the market globally will be in 2022. That increase or rather leap is because of the way the business is done now. Even though communication has improved, you can Skype with China at whatever time you want, you can email people, you do not have to wait for the postal service or official working hours. We are now able to work faster, communicate and do business a lot faster. But it does not eliminate that human touch; people still like to know who they are doing business with, people still like to have that handshake even if it is once every 10 years. So, as business grows and people set up their trading routes, corporate travel is going to increase.
When you look at the stability that the Nigerian government has been able to provide investors into Nigeria with, you then see why business travel out of Nigeria and out of West and Central Africa is growing, because we are making it easier for international partners to come and do business with us. Those international partners are forging relationships with us here in Nigeria, making it easy for Nigerians to go out and do business as well. So, the corporate travel and managed travel business scope is going to continue to increase.
We have mentioned before, the energy sector has continued to grow, but it is not just oil and gas now because the world is looking at suitable energy. So, we have people that are working on solar panels, we have people that are doing investigations on whether we can have wind farms in Jos. All of these require managed travel. Agriculture and fishery industries are developing. Fisheries and ports are huge business in West and Central Africa. In Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, they are working with StarKist Tuna, which has massive operations and they are looking at expanding throughout West and Central Africa. That is more business, more trade, more cruise doing consistent rotations and not just in the oil and gas sector, but in every sector of the industry and the value chain is now expanding. So, where there is business, there is always going to be business travel.
Do you think a few people are travelling for business in Africa now?
I will not say that few people are travelling in Africa because year-on-year, there are more travellers, there are also more business travelers. Now, a lot of airlines are divesting their first class products and are expanding their business class products because travellers budgets are slightly different and leisure travellers now like sitting in a little bit more comfort, but it is also because of the corporate travel space. Now, there is more business travel, more airlines are getting busier, especially if you look at Ethiopian Airline, Kenyan Airways and RwandAir. If you study the products that they are purchasing over the next few years and the products they have in place, these airlines tend to have larger business class cabins, no first class, then the economy and premium economy class offerings as well. So, that shows you the buoyancy of the travel market. However, the challenge that we have now is that the tourism and travel industry in Africa is nowhere near where it is supposed to be.
If you cast your mind back, when the Yamoussoukro initiative was first put in place, it was supposed to have all of the amazing things like open skies, connections agreement and so on, but they were never realized. If that agreement had actually been put in place or worked the way it was intended, we would not have these challenges at this point in time.
The challenge that Africa is facing is that we lacked the interconnectivity that is required to push the continent forward; we lack the interconnectivity whether it is through ground connections or air connections.
Aaron Munetsi, who was former director with South African Airways, who is now with African Airlines Association (AFRAA), is leading the association to put together the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), a single air transport initiative in Africa. Currently, we have only 16 African countries that are able to process the visa on arrival.
We have several African countries that have not signed the SAATM, which is a challenge for us including South Africa.
But the challenge that SAATM initiative is facing is if these countries fail to sign up to the agreement, it is going to continue to cripple us as a continent. The reason that the Americans and the Europeans have been so successful is because you can communicate, commute, travel and can have one passport and cross the continent. In Nigeria, the biggest complaints from our corporate travellers are difficulties in getting visas, passports stuck in one embassy, or difficulty in flying to another country where they travelled to because they also need another visa to connect to the second country, often they have to come back to Nigeria to apply for visa. That lack of communication and connectivity between African countries is crippling us. It is a massive problem, not only that it is expensive to get across the continent but it is also difficult. Until Ethiopian Airline put together their agreements, there were no flights and it was difficult getting from East Africa to West Africa. Why should that be such a challenge? It was easier to fly from West Africa into Europe and back to Africa. Why should that be the case?
One thing that all the black people on the planet have in common is that they are Africans. There is no black person on the planet, no matter the generation, that was not originally African. We all are from the same place. The fact that we cannot communicate with each other in the same language, and cannot reach each other’s countries with ease in order to trade, is a problem. What we are trying to do and why I am going to be a big fan of AFRAA, is to improve that connectivity within the continent. Once we are able to access each other’s countries with ease, African countries will be unstoppable globally.
But due to these challenges, especially issues with visa, frictions, lack of connectivity among others, some of our corporate clients who had previously opted for destinations within Africa are now going to the Middle East, United States and Europe. So, all of that expenditure and finance that could have gone from one African country to the other to support them now go to other places outside Africa to grow their economies.
I respect Dubai. What they have done with their infrastructure and with their organisation is a case study that African countries should look at very closely. I encourage Nigerians and Africans to travel globally to see what they have done and bring such developments back to Africa. When you look at the Chinese and Japanese that was what they did 125 years ago. They realized that they were not where they needed to be, they went out into the world they studied other economies, looked at where that value chain was and they took it home and improved on it. Now, the Asian countries know what the world requires and are providing it at an efficient price.
