An update from Clarity Business Travel

Dear all,

Before I continue, let me first say that I hope you, your families and colleagues are safe and well.  I know this is a very difficult time for everyone and we hope that we can all get to something more like business as usual very soon.

I wanted to write to you to explain how we are doing here at Clarity, what we’re doing to support the business through this time and also how we will ensure service levels, implementations and delivery over the coming months.

We have taken action to safeguard our business and the service for our clients:

We have announced to our staff that we will make use of the government’s Job Retention Scheme (JRS) allowing for the ‘furloughing’ of staff for a period of time.  Over the next few weeks c50% of our team will be ‘furloughed’.  We have ensured that we have significant resources remaining to ensure that we maintain service levels, implementation skills, account knowledge and deliver business critical projects.  There should be no impact whatsoever on service levels for our existing clients or implementations for new clients onboarding.

The staff placed on ‘furlough’ will be back and operational within the business when we get back to BAU. In the meantime, however, we are continuously communicating with them and keeping them informed, engaged and monitoring their welfare.

These actions alongside a focus on cash collection are ensuring a very healthy position is further strengthened.

We are a strong business and group:

The UK business (including our leisure businesses Elegant Resorts and If Only) is extremely strong from a cash resources, facilities and therefore headroom perspective and even without our parent group, we are very well placed to weather this storm.  In addition to the UK businesses, our parent Group Seera is extremely strong and has cash reserves and facilities that will last for a substantial period of time, placing the business in a great position for future growth.

Business as unusual:

Due to our diverse client base, we are still booking travel and hotels domestically for the NHS, Government, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. For us, the need to service our country’s most essential workers is paramount and, as such, we have decided to retain c50% of our team.  This allows us to continue to provide a great level of service our clients come to expect.

Tendering:

Working from home has become an important staple of everyday life, and now that people are putting routines in place, we are seeing an increase in the number of tenders we are receiving. Our bid, team remains unaffected and are hard at work ensuring a strong, consistent message to our prospective clients.

Implementation:

Yes, we are still implementing new clients. This is operating, staffed and managing a variety of new travel programme set-ups. Many customers have decided to press ahead whilst they can so when business returns to normal a full training programme for their staff is ready to roll out and the detailed trickier elements have been delivered whilst it is quiet.

Travel Alerts:

Our dedicated travel alerts team and Clarity TwentyFour departments are still staffed and operational to ensure that we consistently provide the most up to date information, guidance and advice, 24 hours a days, seven days a week.

We have also opened up our travel alert updates to any business travellers, to limit the spread of misinformation and to give all travellers and bookers the most comprehensive travel advice. If you would like to receive the free travel alerts please email salessupport@claritybt.com.

Again, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you, your families and colleagues the very best of health. We just wanted to reach out and confirm that we are absolutely here and ready to support you and any business travellers during the current situation.

Stay Safe

Pat McDonagh
CEO, Clarity