Travel Places team celebrates achievements at Business Travel Awards
The Travel Places team joined 1,000 of our industry colleagues at this year’s Business Travel Awards last week to celebrate a year of success alongside Europe’s corporate travel industry.
Taking place at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel on Friday 30 September, the 27th annual Business Travel Awards Europe 2022 applauded the travel industry for the huge progress it has made over the past year, with the industry making a rapid recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In what is a hugely competitive contest, Travel Places was selected as finalists in two tough categories – National TMC of the year and Account Management team of the year. And whilst the team didn’t come away with a trophy this time, we are honoured to have been recognised amongst the very best in Business Travel in Europe.
For their ability to navigate successfully through all of the challenges that were thrown their way, the Travel Places team will always be winners
Matt Warren, Travel Places Managing Director
Matt Warren, Managing Director at Travel Places, said of the event:
“It was great to come together with our industry peers and hear so much confidence and excitement around the room for the future of business travel. Whilst some feared the industry would take many years to recover after the pandemic, together we have shown that, with our agile, professional and resilient approach, we can come back even stronger.
“We would have loved to have brought home a trophy, but this night was more about celebrating our people – an opportunity to thank our staff for the huge commitment and dedication they bring to everything they do. And particularly over the last two years. When much of the travel industry ground to a halt in 2020, our sports and media group travel services remained in demand.
“For their ability to navigate successfully through all of the challenges that were thrown their way, the Travel Places team will always be winners in our eyes.”
Here we share why we were selected as finalists of TMC of the Year and Account Management Team of the Year:
TMC of the Year finalists
When sporting calendars returned in 2020, they were like no other; Premier League and European club league football played catch up, the F1 season was squeezed into 5 months, and delayed Euros and Olympics and Paralympics were confirmed for 2021.
As the leading travel management company for the elite sports industry, our services were crucial to ensure these events could go ahead. Despite unprecedented cancellations and delays, and varied travel restrictions, our teams got athletes, teams, support staff and stakeholders to their destinations safely, on schedule and ready to perform at their very best. All in the middle of a global pandemic.
Our people delivered day after day, in their unwavering approach to our clients – developing new ways of working, and taking an innovative, agile approach to travel management. By providing protocols that have been utilised across many other events, we helped to secure livelihoods, protect passenger wellbeing and allowed elite athletes to focus on performance.
The key to long-term success is how we deliver in a crisis, and we’re hugely proud to have delivered first class performances throughout the global pandemic.
Account Management Team of the Year finalists
In 2018, we were tasked with managing the travel for all athletes, coaches, officials, and key stakeholders for the British Olympic and British Paralympic Association, as well as media and production crew from Discovery, BBC, Getty Images and Whisper Films.
With the Olympic Games due to be held in Tokyo in July 2020, our account managers worked on this account for two years. Whilst we are well versed in working with complex itineraries, dynamic schedules, unusual baggage requirements, additional equipment, and multiple stakeholders, with just 16 weeks to go until the original date of the opening ceremony in 2020, we were to learn that our role in this event would become far more complex than any other we’d worked on.
Unprecedented times needed an unprecedented service, and our account managers delivered – successfully managing all movements for around 1,700 travellers, despite the ever-evolving and extraordinary circumstances.
This high-profile event proved to be one of our most challenging. But right up until the last athletes returned home, our account managers worked tirelessly to ensure it was a success. They may not have been competing for a medal, but for their unwavering approach to excellence throughout this event, we believe they deserve one.
