The Advantage Travel Partnership has today launched a Business Travel White Paper on 'Remarkable Partnerships' which sets out a formula for transforming business relationships. The White Paper was announced on stage during the business travel plenary session at the consortia’s 2024 conference, which is currently being held at the 5-star Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Resort and Spa in Mexico.

Titled ‘The formula for success: How to transform business relationships into remarkable partnerships’, the White Paper delves into what makes a remarkable partnership, the actionable steps to take to create a formula for success and the impact of this within the wider business travel industry. Reports and findings from the February 2024 Advantage Business Travel Symposium in London contributed to the paper alongside independent insights provided by business travel expert consultancy temoji.

Being one of the UK’s only member-led travel networks, representing 72 percent of the BTN Europe’s Top Travel Management Companies (TMCs), and the third largest TMC network in Europe, the themes of partnership and collaboration are baked into the very essence of The Advantage Partnership. But there is also an acknowledgement that not all partnerships throughout the industry are working as effectively as possible.

The White Paper puts a different lens on the nature of business relationships, asking the question of how we can re-establish relationships and how to ensure they are different as well as providing top tips on building better relationships going forward. Within the whitepaper, Advantage has set out a formula for creating a remarkable partnership and outlines four top considerations when using the formula to elevate business relationships to remarkable partnerships. This could be TMC and Buyer / Buyer and Supplier / Buyer, Supplier and TMC / Supplier and Industry associations.

The formula is:

Formulating Success - P = (Pu + V) - T

Partnership = (Purpose + Value) - Thoughtlessness

Facilitating partnerships and helping members to grow within the business travel industry is a key focus for The Advantage Travel Partnership and 53 percent of the Business Travel Symposium audience considered purposeful relationships the one area they wanted to thrive above all others.

The White Paper acknowledges that although growing remarkable relationships is the goal it has not yet been achieved across the board. Growing divisions in the industry increasingly pose challenges for the TMC, companies and travellers alike. There is work to be done in aligning businesses effectively.

The White Paper takes a look at obstacles that need to be overcome collectively to build truly remarkable partnerships that will benefit not just individuals, but the business travel industry as a collective. It also delves into what is meant by “remarkable” and what a remarkable partnership looks like to the business community, and most crucially how to apply these learnings to ensure we can elevate business relationships.

Sonia Michaels, Head of Business Travel Services and Events of The Advantage Travel Partnership said: “As our members know, collaboration is a core value of ours and the desire to build strong, remarkable partnerships throughout our industry was voiced again and again at this year’s Symposium. The White Paper builds on that desire to discover how to make this concept a reality, putting into practice what we heard, and discussed on the day. We hope you get as much out of these insights as we have.

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the event for the honesty, openness and enthusiasm with which you embraced the day. The Advantage Travel Partnership is dedicated to propelling its members' businesses forward and we recognise the vital role of collaboration within the travel ecosystem. Seeing our members echoing this throughout the event is truly inspiring and heart-warming. It is your contributions and stories that have formed this paper.”

Andrea Caulfield-Smith, Managing Director – Global Business Travel of The Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “Having recently joined the Advantage team, it is already clear to me the importance placed on helping our members to develop the necessary partnerships to enable each and every one of their businesses to thrive in a competitive business travel landscape. We’re proud to be able to offer our members the tools they need to succeed. One of the key themes that came out of the Symposium was personalisation and I think SME TMCs play a large role and can deliver the more personalised service that buyers are looking for.”

Ian Jones, consultant at temoji, said: “The support and solutions Advantage brings to their members and the industry is reflected in these events and in this whitepaper.  They are always guaranteed to be inspiring and leave you fired up and ready to start changing the world! And it was that concept of change that directed the day at the Business Travel Symposium in London. Being a member-led travel network and one of the largest TMC networks in Europe, the themes of partnership and collaboration are clearly very much part of what makes Advantage tick.

We have worked hard to capture the wisdom, insights and vision of the room, where Advantage members and industry experts tackled this conundrum head on, bringing you not just a summary of the day, but consolidating pain points of our industry into actionable, tangible takeaways.”

Read our white paper here.