ACCORDING TO AMON
A LITTLE LESS CHATGPT, A LITTLE MORE ACTION As impressive as ChatGPT is, and in spite of its potential applications in our industry, travel managers need not start applying for jobs as yet irreplaceable by computers
All of us have breathing space for now, because current GPT tools are not reliable. Their output needs verifying by an expert (such as a travel manager) who knows better. But that will change. It so happens that, as conference producer for this year’s Business Travel Show Europe – 28-29 June, ExCel London, since you ask – I have created a masterclass entitled “Make yourself a strategic superhero” (bet ChatGPT wouldn’t have had the foresight to dream that one up). It may just be the most important session you attend in 2023. A CHANGE IN DIRECTION Working on this year’s Business Travel Show Europe, another human resources trend has made itself very apparent. In 2018, there was one travel manager speaker from Central or Eastern Europe on the programme. This year, we already have seven, and I am only three-quarters of the way through speaker recruitment. This isn’t a coincidence. The focus of travel management employment in Europe is assuredly shifting eastwards. Recruiters may initially have looked in that direction because wages are lower but they are staying for the talent. The travel managers I increasingly work with from the region are young, linguistically gifted, intellectually enquiring and exceptionally enthusiastic. And, on top of all that, highly likeable. Working with people across borders is the greatest perk corporate travel offers, in my view. And when our international fellowship expands, as with this new eastwards shift, that pleasure becomes all the greater. In any case, wouldn’t you rather spend your working day communing with people in Budapest, Bucharest and Warsaw than a know-it-all chatbot?
managers, and indeed other employees in our sector, need not start applying for positions as refuse collectors, jockeys or other occupations as yet irreplaceable by computers. One of those interviewees, Cornerstone Information Systems CEO Mat Orrego, told me about another amazing talent of this new technology. His programmers have been feeding programming code into ChatGPT for various systems upgrades. “It literally reformats the code for the upgrade. We’ve been reviewing it and it’s perfect,” he said. Since I’m paid to ask the questions that matter, I came straight to the point. In that case, I asked Mat, will he sack his programmers? “No, absolutely not,” he responded, “because now they are able to be more strategic rather than tactical. To go back and rewrite code for a system that needs an upgrade is not the most productive use of time, because you’re reworking stuff you already did before. I want my people doing the things they know how to do best rather than maintenance programming.” Other interviewees made exactly the same observation about artificial intelligence automating tactical tasks currently distracting travel managers, thus allowing, indeed assisting, them to function strategically instead. For me this insight illuminates the key question we should all self-assess to remain gainfully employed: where in our work will we add value that artificial intelligence cannot? Where in our work can we add value that artificial intelligence can’t?
BY AMON COHEN
J ust to be clear from the outset: although ChatGPT is the subject of this column, ChatGPT is not, unfashionable as this may be, the author of it. Until BTN Europe’s distinguished editor can type in an instruction along the lines of “Bash out 700 words of topical observation on managed travel in the wearied tones of a curmudgeonly Luddite”, I’m afraid, dear reader, you are stuck with the real Amon Cohen. I assume like me you have been wondering what the future holds for your career in light of the astonishing powers demonstrated by ChatGPT and other Generative Pre-Trained Transformer bots since being revealed to the world in November last year. What is already clear is that GPT can automate research and communication tasks, even very sophisticated ones, that previously only humans could manage. If you think that might change things for you as a travel professional, try being someone whose living is writing for travel professionals. I have nightmare visions of shuffling along in my penguin suit to the next Business Travel Journalism Awards and trying to keep a gracious smile on my face as a clean sweep is made of all the categories by a smug-looking laptop. I recently interviewed four corporate travel experts, all of them keen students of technology, about what they think of ChatGPT. Mercifully, they unanimously believe travel
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SPRING 2023 | businesstravelnewseurope.com
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