Impact Consultants : « the consolidation is one of the big CHALLENGES in business travel »
The interview of Rodolphe Lenoir, co-founder of Impact Consultants by TourMag
Artificial intelligence (AI), NDC, employment, the Olympic Games… What changes will the tourism industry undergo? Rodolphe Lenoir, co-founder of Impact Consultants, provides some answers.
“The important thing for companies is to have a plan, the ability to adapt, and options for diversification. It’s about being agile enough to seize opportunities,” says Rodolphe Lenoir, co-founder of Impact Consultants.
TourMaG.com – Who is Impact consultants ?
Impact Consultants is a leading consulting firm in the travel sector in general: leisure and business tourism, transportation, mobility, hospitality, travel tech, amusement parks, and more. We also work in the healthcare sector.
We have been in business for just over three years. The firm currently has 15 employees, including one in Monaco and another in London, to serve our clients in France and abroad.
Our focus is on growth. We support companies in their growth plans, from strategy to operations.
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TourMaG.com – You are one of the co-founders and have extensive experience in the tourism industry.
This is another unique feature of our firm: the entire team has worked in the industry.
Personally, I have over 25 years of experience in the tourism industry. I worked for 15 years at Air France, three years at CWT, and another three years at the Marseille-based hotel chain Vacances Bleues. This gives me a fairly comprehensive overview, although no one has ever covered the entire sector.
TourMaG.com – How has Covid impacted the tourism industry?
COVID has accelerated certain transformations, such as CSR, even if things have calmed down a bit recently.
The industry is very cyclical. I come from the airline industry. Every three years at Air France, we went through a crisis.
The important thing for companies is to have a plan, the ability to adapt, and options for diversification. It’s about being agile enough to seize opportunities. I think Covid has reinforced that.
TourMaG.com – What is your view of the tourism industry today?
It’s a sector that is constantly changing.
If I take the example of the internet, the first industry to be disrupted by the internet was tourism. At the time, people were predicting the death of travel agencies. Today, there are still more than 4,000 in France.
And there are some great agencies, new concepts, including offline agencies.
Today, there is a topic that is AI. Indeed, AI is going to disrupt many things, including travel. There is inevitably a major issue on which the industry needs to reinvent itself. Tourism is capable of adapting.
I was at the Travel Pioneers Forum, where I saw once again that people are passionate about their work. There is a real passion for customers, for the sector, and for the products.
Tourism is also an industry with an extremely complex distribution ecosystem.
Today in France, it is an industry that needs to continue to ask questions and reinvent itself. And we can still feel certain obstacles.
TourMaG.com – You talk about reinventing oneself. In what direction should the industry go?
There are several issues. We need to reinvent ourselves or evolve, but there is also the issue of teams: How can we attract the next generation to the profession? How can we retain them? How can we motivate them?
It is precisely the ability to give opportunities to less technical employees. For example, in the past, it took weeks and weeks of IATA training to issue a ticket. Today, with NDC and the UX available, we can train people in two days.
We are moving from an industry of technicians to an industry that must recognize that, although there is a lot of technology behind it, the people on the front line are more human, more empathetic.
There is a second challenge that is permanent in the industry, and that is technology. France is lagging behind America and Spain when it comes to NDC. Agencies are a real hindrance, even though NDC opens up a whole range of possibilities, despite not being perfect today.
Agencies need to reinvent their business model, the way they work, and the tools they use. Agencies haven’t realized this yet.
Third topic: market consolidation.
In business travel, for example, there has been significant consolidation with the acquisition of CWT by Amex GBT, but at the same time, there are new players, such as Navan and Supertripper in France. Technology creates opportunities.
The consolidation of Amex with Egencia and CWT also creates space for small agencies.
TourMaG.com – Still on the topic of technology, how is the industry responding to AI?
There are several scenarios. Some people want to go for it and try things out. As with all changes, you have to embrace it and see it as an opportunity.
In my field, consulting, AI is major, because one of our jobs is to do research for our clients, benchmark, and bring in methods.
You can either look at it and think it’s terrible for consulting, that we won’t be able to hire juniors tomorrow. We think it saves us time, so we can do other things and do them better.
It needs to be seen as an opportunity. That’s the point.
TourMaG.com – To what extent can we talk about opportunity? In distribution, could AI help solve recruitment difficulties, for example?
AI will generate productivity gains, that’s for sure. But as an agency, I ask myself: how can I recruit?
What can I do to recruit the profiles I’m looking for and offer a better service to my clients? Rather than doing repetitive tasks that don’t add value for my clients. The first itinerary can be created on ChatGPT.
On the front office side, when it comes to creating trips, AI can fuel new ideas, free up more time for human interaction, etc.
With AI, we maintain this notion of service that responds to the tourism industry, including business travel.
TourMaG.com – What is the future of brick-and-mortar agencies?
There are key moments in the journey when people need reassurance. And reassurance is not something a robot can provide, but rather someone. When we press the button to go to Latin America, or to take a business trip to China, that’s when we need to talk to someone. Travel agencies must evolve towards a multi-channel approach, capable of interacting between the virtual world and the real world.
TourMaG.com – Does an agency need to adhere to a concept in order to survive?
There are plenty of agencies that do very well without having a concept. Why? Because they have this notion of proximity to customer service, and beyond the concept, that’s the first thing customers expect: the right price, the right service, and proximity.
After that, you have to market it. This brings us back to a topic that we also help our clients with in terms of marketing: positioning.
Value creation is linked to a strong DNA and consistency between what you say and what you do. That’s almost the most important thing.
And whether you’re a neighborhood agency that doesn’t claim to have a great concept, but says: “I am your local agency in the city. I am not a specialist in a particular destination, but I am able to support you and I understand you because I know the people in my region. I will recruit young people who have this desire to support others.” That’s what’s important.
You have to be aware of your DNA and reflect it in your positioning and actions, including your recruitment. And there’s no need to say every time that you have a great concept.
For a tour operator, it’s a little different. I think a tour operator needs to be positioned and have a concept. But in the same way, it’s always a question of the promise behind it and keeping it.
TourMaG.com – Are you saying that the hype surrounding CSR has died down?
It’s a fact. We can see it in the recovery of the airline industry.
Overall, 80-90% of people support the idea of environmentalism. But when you ask them if they’re willing to spend more time traveling or pay a little more, etc., that number drops to 20-30%.
I think things are slowly changing.
In terms of CSR, not everything has been abandoned. There has been a more significant structural change in business travel.
If business travel has not picked up again, it is because habits have changed. A company’s CSR policy has an impact on its travel policy. There are fewer day trips by plane in Europe. And that’s good for carbon emissions.
Similarly, standards in the events industry are really important.
Then there are the leisure operators themselves, who are making efforts. In the hotel industry, a lot has been done to promote short circuits.
It’s a bit pessimistic to say that everything has fallen apart, but in the minds of customers, between a trip to Morocco by plane costing $450 and renting an electric car to go to Brittany, which will cost more, I think many families choose Morocco. It’s not the destination, it’s any destination, but it’s the price.
TourMaG.com – Are there any other issues to watch out for in the coming months or years?
I think there is a strong geopolitical situation. That’s obvious. Another topic in the coming month: the Paris Olympics.
TourMaG.com – Are the Olympic Games an opportunity?
They’re here, so we have to turn them into an opportunity. The 2024 Paris Olympics will have a negative impact. Air France has just released the figures.
I was with Air France during the 1998 World Cup. Every time, we think it’s going to generate a lot of traffic, but it’s always the same thing: there’s anticipated traffic for people going to the event, but everyone else doesn’t want to go anymore.
Those who overcharged for flights mismanaged this opportunity.
Then there’s the short-term issue. How can we optimize what we have? I think the Olympics will create an opportunity. If we look at Barcelona, the Olympics transformed the city’s image. They were the start of a boost in tourism.
I live in Marseille, and I experienced the arrival of the flame in Marseille. I can tell you that it was a fantastic dynamic. An extraordinary image of Marseille.
An interview conducted by Caroline Lelievre @TourMag