TravelHorst Sustainable Business Travel Consulting founder
Horst Bayer is eager to see the larger industry develop its expertise in
sustainability and truly understand the opportunities for science-based
transformation.
“The industry has to rethink everything,” he said. “We need
standards and we need better science to help us make airlines and hotels more
sustainable.” What he doesn’t want to see is a business travel industry that
stops traveling. As some companies tout extreme ambitions with technology
alternatives to business travel, even Bayer has taken a pause.
“We are starting at zero [given the pandemic], and we don’t
need to go back to 100 percent of our travel,” he said. “I do think that
companies now are at a point where they see they have made it a year with no
travel, but now even I am saying ‘travel is important.’ I see people, my
industry colleagues, losing their jobs. I know that travel is important to the
economy. Traveling is important to our businesses and to our business
relationships. So we have to understand that this is about a balance. It’s
people, planet, profit. And we have to work in that order.”
Rather than putting a hard stop on business travel,
corporate partnerships and travel managers should prepare to play a huge role
in changing the travel industry, he said, because demand for sustainable
solutions will catalyze innovation. “They do need to demand that their
suppliers provide solutions and verifiably sustainable products to business
travelers. They have that power, and they should use it.”