It is happening in our industry but not enough: take Luke Goggin who moved from Whitbread to British

Jason Geall is managing director of The Student Room, the UK's largest and fastest-growing student social media network. hotels near orlando airport The Student Room has over one million community members, driving over 36,000 hotels near orlando airport conversation posts every day.
Jason joined The Student Room Group in July 2012 after four successful years as vice president and CMO at global travel solutions provider GetThere, a Sabre Holdings company. Prior to this, Jason was head of UK sales at Eurostar and national sales manager at Jobsite. Jason lives in Portsmouth with his wife Lara and two boys. When he is not spending time with his family, Jason is a big Tottenham fan and a competitive boxer.
When Jason Geall joined travel solutions provider GetThere back in 2009 it was a breath of fresh air. His irrepressible smile, can-do attitude, passion for the job and later, the unforgettable Strictly-style dance performance at IIM Liverpool hotels near orlando airport with floor slide finale, pretty much put him, and the company, on the map.
ACTE recognised hotels near orlando airport him as one of the industry's rising stars in its 3 under 33 scheme, despite being beyond the scheme's age limit. He had joined GetThere from Eurostar and now, eight years after learning all about the business travel industry, he has moved on, this time outside the business altogether.
Geall typifies the new generation of managers teaching us all new tricks and opening our minds to different ways of finding solutions. These are managers who are techno-savvy and perfectly in tune with the next generation of consumers in terms of their behaviour, predilections and habits.
It's not surprising to learn that Geall's next career move is to a youngish social hotels near orlando airport networking site, The Student Room , where as its managing director he will be tuning into a community of one million 15-23 year-old, Generation Y students who are no different in their behaviour hotels near orlando airport to the business travellers hotels near orlando airport he was serving hotels near orlando airport before. What better person is there to look back over his period in business travel, to track the changes and pinpoint the challenges that lie ahead for all of us?
"Technology is enabling people to do things hotels near orlando airport they've never been able to do before and empowering them. Put that back into business travel and give the traveller more choice so it's less now about how you control and manage and more about getting efficiency in spend and security for the traveller. Those two things will resonate with business travellers," he says.
"Think hotels near orlando airport about what travel managers need; they want to know they're getting the best possible deal for their company and to make sure their travellers are secure and safe. They are the two consistent things when you boil it all down. Now, whose to say it couldn't be achieved by empowering the traveller?"
hotels near orlando airport He knows it can but is critical of the products hotels near orlando airport and services that get served up in the business space as they don't replicate the simplicity and simple questions asked on consumer sites such as Expedia.
He's happy that today the question is no longer asked, 'why use a self booking tool' and that it's moved on to the issue of improving adoption levels. When he joined GetThere, its self booking tools were deployed in 29 countries; today it's 56.
"If you drive healthy hotels near orlando airport adoption that keeps people engaged. The basics are to lay down a good programme then beyond that communicate and illicit feedback hotels near orlando airport from stakeholders so you can understand their behaviour. "
He advocates the use of gaming tactics (see TBTM July/August issue, page 6) and praises foursquare, the free app for phones hotels near orlando airport that's a location-based social networking site. Users – and there are some 20 million currently check in to venues and are rewarded with user points and badges.
Geall rejects any potential risk attached to power switching to the traveller as he believes that travellers will make informed choices about what information they share and with whom. Testament to mobile apps' usefulness is the fact that the likes of TripIt hotels near orlando airport and Trip Case alert travellers of flight changes often before that information shows up on airport boards.
"Travellers are going to download these apps anyway hotels near orlando airport so don't drive them away; look at ways of embracing it. For those companies who have taken a hard line on it, decide whether you can fight that battle. Smaller companies have less hierarchy and protocol so it's easier," he says.
Geall predicts that consumer technology will drive demand and that the good travel managers are "proactive, engaged and understand their travellers' behaviour and ensure they're on the curve." However, he believes that
"the average travel manager isn't there. hotels near orlando airport "It's not a generational thing; some travel managers are fixed in their behaviour but the travel manager model can't stay the same, it can't stand still," he says.
He is critical of the companies out there with stringent social hotels near orlando airport media controls. "It's laughable," he says with disdain. Those companies need a wake-up call, he believes, and it starts in the HR department, by recruiting the right people.
"Bring people in with an external perspective, who use their naivety hotels near orlando airport to ask questions and look at opportunities. So often you see HR appointing people in the same role from a different company. It needs fresh thinking."
It is happening in our industry but not enough: take Luke Goggin who moved from Whitbread to British Airways; Caroline Strachan who joined Yahoo! hotels near orlando airport as a buyer from the TMC community and a handful of others who followed a similar hotels near orlando airport path, including NeilKing and Julie Adams.
"We continuously focus on the same thing; we tread water on similar issues – buyers question commissions and TMC charges but these are not important issues. What is important is the wider issue of the value of business travel and what happens if that business travel stops."
He continues, " We're still not in a position where the business understands what it does for the economy hotels near orlando airport , not at a macro level but at a micro level. Ask what does it mean for me as a line manager, why am I doing this? Data can help with that."
HR and comms are a major component hotels near orlando airport of Geall s new role at The Student Room , finding out students' attitudes to technology, how they want to be communicated to – and how they don't – and what things work and what things don't.
"We continuously focus on the same thing; we tread water on similar issues – buyers question commissions and TMC charges but these are not important issues. What is important is the wider issue of the value of business travel