This week two giants in travel management made announcements of tie-ups with technology companies that will improve their mobile offering.
Fraedom, HRG's online travel and expense software, has linked with Itemize to create a streamlined, mobile expense management solution. Fraedom customers will be able to use their mobile device to photograph receipts which will be automatically scanned and data extracted for the expense management system making the expense submission and reimbursement process much simpler. [Spendvision, from which Fraedom has emerged, already had receipt imaging but this adds to the functionality.]
Meanwhile, Travelport announced the acquisition of Mobile Travel Technologies which has a mobile travel platform that allows TMCs to communicate with their customers via apps, mobile web and mobile messaging. Products include MTT Engage which "provides real-time personalised messages and offers to the traveller" and MTT Concierge Live which "delivers a 'day of travel' experience via a traveller's mobile device including live, contextual travel updates and airport guidance".
If these both sound familiar, it could be because the functionality is identical to the expenses aspect of KDS Neo: Move which CEO Deans Forbes launched via a demo on an Apple watch at KDS Now last month in Paris and will be available to KDS customers in the autumn.
All these products are very similar. They are mobile and, most importantly, traveller centric. Mobile means that more and more of travel management support and processes are being moved — quite literally — to the traveller...
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Mobile takeover is a matter of when, not if. © Yuri_Arcurs/iStock
Mobile is no longer a 'nice to have' option for tech-savvy, Generation Y travellers. It is poised to become integral to travel management. The question is not if but when. The bigger question though is how will this change what travel managers do?
The increasing focus of corporate management tools on the traveller is a trend which will affect corporate travel management. More and more of the duty of care, itinerary management, travel alerts, traveller information and even much of what constitutes the demand for an out-of-hours service can be delivered direct.
The obvious outcome is that the emphasis of the corporate's role in corporate travel management will be less on the trip and the traveller and increasingly focused on supplier sourcing, procurement, contracting and managing supplier relationships.
The travel management company looks set to play a larger role and the biggest travel decision that the company's management team will make is the appointment of the TMC.
In the battle to 'own the traveller', will it inevitably be slipping away from the corporate?
Maybe but in life there are many ways to deflect what looks like an obvious outcome.